[Feature] Interactive Dock

[martinszeltins]

I found this really cool concept of an interactive Dock, perhaps this is something Dash to Dock could implement as opt-in feature? I think Linux might be the first OS with such a cool Dock!

Link: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1333208194305519729/macos-dock-widget-edition

Screenshot:

[sglbl]

I agree, one of the biggest lacks of GNU/Linux Desktop is that it doesn't have interactive control or jump-list feature unlike Windows/MacOS. Not sure if this is related to the OS or to DE or to app devs.

Example:

or

[martinszeltins]

I agree, one of the biggest lacks of GNU/Linux Desktop is that it doesn't have interactive control or jump-list feature unlike Windows/MacOS. Not sure if this is related to the OS or to DE or to app devs.

This functionality is entirely the responsibility of apps. The Dock (even when implemented as a GNOME extension) is just another user-space program and can expose any interaction model its developers choose. Whether such features exist or not ultimately comes down to application authors and whether the users want them.

IMO: This would be a really cool feature! 🤩

[coldsprinkles]

If GNOME supported a dock, then we could have made this more standardized so apps would actually use this, cause it would be seen part of the DE

[martinszeltins]

If GNOME supported a dock, then we could have made this more standardized so apps would actually use this, cause it would be seen part of the DE

@coldsprinkles What do you mean? GNOME DOES support a Dock. You can create any type of Dock you want using GNOME extensions. I don't think this needs to be any more standardized as it already is. I don't see any limitations.

[coldsprinkles]

It supports a Dash not a dock, thing is, by default the dash is not visible, you have to go to the overview, that's why from the perspective of vanilla/default GNOME, it doesn't make sense to have widgets there, which is sad, I really want it to become the default, so that apps implement more features around the Dock, otherwise from the perspective of app developers they don't wanna spend effort on creating features for something not supported by/ not default on GNOME.

[martinszeltins]

@coldsprinkles The defaults are minimal by design. It doesn't ship with all apps and extensions installed. That's your job as the user to install what you want / need. GNOME does support a Dock or any other app or widget you want to create. That's the beauty of Linux - you have complete freedom to do what you desire. It's especially easy now with AI, you can create any extension you like.

If you want, you can choose a distro which will ship a Dock by default.

This is not a GNOME limitation.

[coldsprinkles]

I mean to say it doesn't have a standard API, like say as you have for actions, like this

You can define the actions within the app code itself, but how would apps define their widgets on the dock if this feature is implemented?
Like for actions like next previous you can just

action = Gio.SimpleAction.new(name, None)
        action.connect("activate", callback)
        self.add_action(action)

within the apps code.

This looks pretty cool I know and is pretty desirable, would love to have it.

But,
We would need something similar for these kinds of widgets right? That needs work upstream ig some way to create a widget from within the apps code?