Home Forums Wiki Doc Install Extras Screenshots Source Code Projects Blog Users Groups Register
Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock Blogs list Cairo-Dock in English!
The latest stable release is the *3.4.0* : How to install it here.
Note: We just switched from BZR to Git on Github! (only to host the code and your future pull requests)

Support Us


Flattr this


Cairo-Dock 2.1.0 : faster, easier, better

Author matttbe, Saturday 10 October 2009 à 01:12
Comments 5

While 2.0 was introducing OpenGL, version 2.1 is getting more robust.
Here is the result of 4 months of hard labour :

Some "annoying bugs" from the Taskbar, PowerManager, Clipper and the keyboard indicator have been squashed.
The dock at the same became more stable and faster especially when OpenGL is activated (the applet Clock or Cairo-Penguin are now virtually using no CPU resources).
A news that should please many is that OpenGL now works with the very latest OpenSource drivers for ATI and Intel video card !

The dock is evolving thanks to you all ! Lots of comments made after the launch of 2.0 where noted and acted on.
The configuration panel has been polished (the presentation as improved and the options are better grouped, etc)
The pictures ratio is now correct (windows thumbnail and Switcher, etc)
It is easier to create a new main dock or to move the icons from one dock to another.
A new mode "extended dock" has appeared (the dock will fill up the all side of the screen).

Themes have also been reviewed and now have an user friendly interface : you can sort the theme by name, rating or simplicity. You can even rate them yourself once you have downloaded them !
Thanks to all of the contributors !
A complete tutorial is available here.

Applets have also gained in the process :

Shortcuts and Notes now have a improved desklet mode, which will allow you to display on your Desktop the icons normally drawn by Nautilus as well you "post-it".
The digital clock has a better rendering.
The applets 'Rhythmbox' and 'XMMS' merged to form a new applet MusicPlayer, It now allows to control just about any player.
'Cpusage', 'Ram-meter' and 'Nvidia' also merge into the System-Monitor applet, which offers basic system information (CPU, RAM, Nvidia card temperature, etc)

On the very new side we are introducing Dnd2Share, an file sharing applet. It will allow you to send your files on a server of your choice by simply dragging and dropping them on the applet ! you will not be able to live without it.

You will also notice that open effect of the Slide view is looking a bit more like its Mac OSX equivalent.

On the project side itself, we migrated to LaunchPad !
This means that:
  • there is a 'weekly-build' Ubuntu users.
  • a manual 'daily-compiled' (Mav' script has been updated)
  • Easier tools for the translators (it's here)
  • The possibility for everyone to contribute to the project thanks to bazaar.
  • A complete documentation of Cairo-Dock's API available at this address : http://doc.glx-dock.org.


As usual your comments/remarks are most welcome.
Enjoy this new version of Cairo-Dock !

The Cairo-Dock team.

Translated by ppmt

1.6.3 or How to close a branch in style

Author ppmt, Monday 10 November 2008 à 07:46
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by Fabounet here

On one side it is too bad, as this was the version I wanted to see first in Ubuntu. This is definitely the most polished version so far.
On the other side let's be happy that it is not included when you see what it takes to be in! This version is the perfect excuse to erase the Ubuntu version from the memory

So once more only good stuff in sight!
Better late than never, Cairo-Dock from now on follows the Freedesktop standards (binaries are in /usr/lib, datas are in /usr/share and now the config in ~/.config/cairo-dock)
The icons also have now their onw directories, ~/.config/cairo-dock/current_theme/icons, to allow for complete interchangeable themes.

The gnome-panel can now be binned thanks to the applet GMenu. This was the last barrier : Access to the Main menu.
Another useful applet just appeared: Clipper (well known from all KDE users who won't be lost as the options are the same )

The Cairo_Desklets just received a face lift with new decorations themes for all of them, the possibility to rotate them, a wobbly effect when you move them with the mouse. It is possible to rapidly send the desklet from the desktop to dock in one click and the other way is as fast just drag and drop them on the desktop
The launcheurs also can be ejected from the dock wiht drag and drop (but for them no desklet mode, the disappear in an explosion!)

The gauge applets also have received an improvement: it is now possible to display their values on a graph (several forms are even available)

And finally the cherry on the cake: Moving the icons with the mouse inside the dock is now extremely fluid.

If it wasn't for the Branch2, I would nearly have had time to get bored

1.6.2 - 1st version to be in the Ubuntu repository

Author ppmt, Tuesday 02 September 2008 à 17:08
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by Fabounet here

With this new version we are now in the official repositorie of one of the biggest distros : Ubuntu !

After Suse and soon Fedora and Debian, the dock is becomign easier and easier to install which in turnr should help to make it popular.

On the applets side, Slider and Stack have been added to the plig-ins package, which means that there is a total number of plugins of ... well a lot

On the dock itslef a big evolution occured on the interface between the dock and the applets, which means that it is now possible to have several instances of certain applets. You can several clock with different time zone, you can monitor the flow of several interfaces, you have several stacks or several weblets. But most important you can have a Tux and a Wanda roaming your dock at the same time

Anoter evolution which should be transparent to the user to start with is about the themes : as of now the project has its own themes'server that can be downloaded when they are needed (as if they were on your hard disk)

Like that the collection of themes for Cairo-Dock can only increase (thanks to your future contributions )

The dock is 1 year old!

Author ppmt, Wednesday 30 July 2008 à 03:30
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by Fabounet here

That's it 1 year old! Isn't that incredible?

One year ago I was posting a message on the Ubuntu-fr forum to let people know that I modified a few line in gnome-dock so that you could put on top of the taskbar.

And now we have just released the version 1.6.1 part of the 1.6 branch with more applets and themes.

Ti sum it up we have the new Switcher applet (which allow you to definitely get rid of the Gnome-panel) a new very classy theme : Brit
and also a new view : Curve (note from ppmt: Too nice!!)

Package generation is also getting very mature, juste in time for the inclusion of the dock in Ubuntu 8.10!

Up to us to make it perfect by October so that everybody can have cairo-dock on its dekstop.

Tomboy revisited

Author ppmt, Wednesday 04 June 2008 à 02:51
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by Fabounet here

After having grilled Cpusage and Rame (integration of "top" and some other useful info on the CPU), I decided to do the same to the Tomboy applet and make it more useful.

So from now on you can search not only a word in all your notes, but also a tag or even a notes created today, this week or next week.

The matching notes will have an indicator on them, and the sub-dock will show up at the mouse level.

You can also choose to display the beginning of each note in the icons (a bit like text file in Konqueror or Nautilus).

And finally the loading is threaded (you save nearly 1 second during the loading when you have 5 notes)

So Tomboy will be in version 1.6, unless something goes wrong...

The SVN has reached the revision 999...let's sum it up

Author ppmt, Monday 26 May 2008 à 02:17
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by ChAnGFu here

Today (ed: well really a couple of weeks ago now!) we (finally) reached the revision 999 of the SVN version. It is time to keep you updated on the evolution of the dock.

Since my last article an new applet and a new rendering view have appeared as well as many more functionalities:
          • The Diapositive view: this view allows you display a big number of icones in a small place (another created under pressure from Nochka85 !) (written by paradoxxx.zero)
          • The 3D view now has a physical separator. ( Fabounet)
          • The Slider applet: A desklet to display pictures as a diaporama. (written by ChAnGFu)
          • The dock can now auto-hide when you maximise an application (this was highly requested). (Fabounet)
          • Indicators can now be in front of the icons. (Fabounet)
          • The arrival of a new theme: Néon (written by paradoxxx.zero)
          • Desklets can now have a background and an overlay (like pieces of tapes, a picture to simulate a reflection, etc... (Fabounet)
          • The soon to be integration of Wanda the fish in the Cairo-Penguin applet (Benoit2600)
          • And the correction of many little bugs.


The dock is now also integrated in the repository of 2 well known ditros: Fedora and PCLinuxOS

Note: We are still looking for some KDE developers to help coding the integration of the dock inside it.

More details on some of the news:

Diapositive view:
It is a very easy view to use with Stacks and other monitored directories. Here are 2 screenshots:
http://pix.nofrag.com/e/5/1/456b4e0d481359a3404e6076b5a36.png http://pix.nofrag.com/c/6/3/a1f7cfc23af96f0735f42fd598d8d.png

The physical separator in the 3D view:
http://pix.nofrag.com/0/6/e/3056e62dd9c460780bcd036c6cfe2.png

The Slider applet:
As its name implies this applet is used to create diaporamas of you pictures. Select a directories and one of the 7 effects and you are good to go!
http://pix.nofrag.com/4/e/2/237988dbd3018d6a2a026b3ff56b0.png

Her you can also see the background and the reflection on the desklets.

More details
Now the dock can auto-hide when you maximise an application. This highly demanded options is now available on the svn version and will soon be in the repositories.
paradoxx-zero is sharing with us his new theme Neon. It will also be available in the next version of the dock.
http://pix.nofrag.com/8/a/8/36f6685227c313b1e4ffaf08478ce.png
The clock also got a new theme called "BlueSlim" which I had promised for som time now. I just forgot to integrate it! (ed ChanGFu not me!).
http://pix.nofrag.com/e/9/3/1605fcaeb1a1210ffb38d5a4d2ce4.png
The desklets were not spared either during the development cycle. It is now possible to lock them on the desktop so that you will not move them accidentally.

Here it is for the latest news, hoping I didn't forget anything. A big thank you to Benoit2600 for its graphics contribution and Wanda!

Warm up your compiler!

Stacks: a shortcut plugin for your files! + Bonus

Author ppmt, Monday 26 May 2008 à 01:31
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by ChAnGFu here

Hello everybody!

I would like to present you with a new applet I am working on (ed: ChanGFu not me!) which most likely will be included in the next version of Cairo-Dock: the Stacks applet.

As the title say it is designed to control you file and directories shortcuts.

Its creation is due to an internal pressure group (Nochka85 being their leader!). I had to do under verbale tortures as well as vision of screenshots containing women in bikini....Very hard to concentrate under condition like that!!!

The applet also integrate an advanced monitoring function of your directories and you can choose to display or not hidden files as well as filter files per types (pictures, videos, music, applications, etc...)

To top it all it will allow the geekest among us to use the Compiz Wallpaper plugins to display a different pictures on each virtual desktop while still having the content of a directory (for example ~/Bureau) displayed as a desklet on thes virtual desktops..

Nochka85 will I am sure make a point to document the tips and trick section of the wiki or in the forum

Here is a little preview of what has been done:
http://pix.nofrag.com/4/e/9/b698bd6443af44cc428af6c02da17.png

The desklet part that is part of the plugins has not yet been developed. I will make a screenshot for the "final" release of the applet.

A small Bonus:
Fabounet our Guru created a little function to allow a very user-friendly drag and drop

http://pix.nofrag.com/d/f/b/857b33a4f2c8c4fc807992e953884.png

Yes a drop indicator! note that for extra cool it is animated! And of course the indicator picture is configurable!

Access your keyboard shortcuts..by clicking them

Author ppmt, Monday 26 May 2008 à 00:58
Comments 0

Note: this article is a translation. You can find its original version written by Fabounet here

Following up on a good idea from Benoît, I took inspiration from xdotool to be able to execute keyboard shortcut from a launcher.

It is now possible to either enter a command or a keyboard shortcut in the command field of each launcher.

The syntax is the same as the standard way of capturing key combination:

<Modifier1><Modifier2>...<ModifierN>key

Examples :
<Alt>F1 : Will show the Application menu. To make sure it will appear next to the laucnher delete the menu from the gnome-panel.
<Ctrl>c : Copy the current selection in the buffer.
<Ctrl>v : Paste the buffer.

If you have more examples do not hesitate the complete the list!


Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock Blogs list Cairo-Dock in English! Top

Online users :

Powered by ElementSpeak © 2007 Adrien Pilleboue, 2009-2013 Matthieu Baerts.
Dock based on CSS Dock Menu (Ndesign) with jQuery. Icons by zgegball
Cairo-Dock is a free software under GNU-GPL3 licence. First stable version created by Fabounet.
Many thanks to TuxFamily for the web Hosting and Mav for the domain name.