The Dicenomicon: Starter Mac OS
Mac OS 8.1 was used on the Macintosh in the above picture and a version of System 7 will look a bit different. With BasiliskII, an emulated Macintosh can run full-screen as well in a window like shown on the picture. A Few Useful Notes The 'System Folder' contains files essential to the Macintosh operating system. Under Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.8, download this installer (19.5 MB). In both cases, double-click on the downloaded file and run Sweet Home 3D application found in the opened folder. If the system refuses to launch Sweet Home 3D for security reasons, click on its application icon while maintaining the ctrl key pressed, and choose Open in the.
| Operating system | macOS |
|---|---|
| Service name | Dock.app |
| Type | Taskbar |
The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of macOS. It is used to launch applications and to switch between running applications. The Dock is also a prominent feature of macOS's predecessor NeXTSTEP and OpenStep operating systems. The earliest known implementations of a dock are found in operating systems such as RISC OS and NeXTSTEP. iOS has its own version of the Dock for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as does iPadOS for the iPad.
Apple applied for a US patent for the design of the Dock in 1999 and was granted the patent in October 2008, nearly a decade later.[1] Any application can be dragged and dropped onto the Dock to add it to the dock, and any application can be dragged from the dock to remove it, except for Finder and Trash, which are permanent fixtures as the leftmost and rightmost items (or highest and lowest items if the Dock is vertically oriented), respectively. Part of the macOS Core Services, Dock.app is located at /System/Library/CoreServices/.
Overview[edit]
In NeXTSTEP and OpenStep, the Dock is an application launcher that holds icons for frequently used programs. The icon for the Workspace Manager and the Recycler are always visible. The Dock indicates if a program is not running by showing an ellipsis below its icon. If the program is running, there isn't an ellipsis on the icon. In macOS, running applications have been variously identified by a small black triangle (Mac OS X 10.0-10.4) a blue-tinted luminous dot (Mac OS X 10.5-10.7), a horizontal light bar (OS X 10.8 and 10.9), and a simple black or white dot (OS X 10.10-present).
In macOS, however, the Dock is used as a repository for any program or file in the operating system. It can hold any number of items and resizes them dynamically to fit while using magnification to better view smaller items. By default, it appears on the bottom edge of the screen, but it can also instead be placed on the left or right edges of the screen if the user wishes. Applications that do not normally keep icons in the Dock will still appear there when running and remain until they are quit. These features are unlike those of the dock in the NeXT operating systems where the capacity of the Dock is dependent on display resolution. This may be an attempt to recover some Shelf functionality since macOS inherits no other such technology from NeXTSTEP. (Minimal Shelf functionality has been implemented in the Finder.)
The changes to the dock bring its functionality also close to that of Apple's Newton OSButton Bar, as found in the MessagePad 2x00 series and the likes. Applications could be dragged in and out of the Extras Drawer, a Finder-like app, onto the bar. Also, when the screen was put into landscape mode, the user could choose to position the Button Bar at the right or left side of the screen, just like the Dock in macOS.
The macOS Dock also has extended menus that control applications without making them visible on screen. On most applications it has simple options such as Quit, Keep In Dock, Remove From Dock, and other options, though some applications use these menus for other purposes, such as iTunes, which uses this menu as a way for a user to control certain playback options. Other Applications include changing the status of an online alias (MSN, AIM/iChat etc.) or automatically saving the changes that have been made in a document (There is no current application with this feature made available for macOS). Docklings (in Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier) can also be opened by using the right-mouse button, if the mouse has one, but most of the time either clicking and holding or control-click will bring the menu up.
In Mac OS X Leopard, docklings were replaced by Stacks. Stacks 'stack' files into a small organized folder on the Dock, and they can be opened by left-clicking.Stacks could be shown in three ways: a 'fan', a 'grid', or a 'list', which is similar to docklings. In grid view, the folders in that stack can be opened directly in that stack without the need to open Finder.
In iOS, the dock is used to store applications and, since iOS 4, folders containing applications. Unlike the macOS dock, a maximum of 4 icons can be placed in the dock on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The maximum for the iPad however is 16 icons (13 apps and 3 recently opened apps). The size of the dock on iOS cannot be changed.
The Dicenomicon: Starter Mac Os X
When an application on the Dock is launched by clicking on it, it will jump until the software is finished loading. Additionally, when an application requires attention from a user, it will jump even higher until its icon is clicked and the user attends to its demands.
Design[edit]
The original version of the dock, found in Mac OS X Public Beta to 10.0, presents a flat white translucent interface with the Aqua styled pinstripes. The dock found in Mac OS X 10.1 to 10.4 removes the pinstripes, but otherwise is identical. Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.7 presents the applications on a three-dimensional glassy surface from a perspective instead of the traditional flat one, resembling Sun Microsystems' Project Looking Glass application dock.[2] OS X 10.8 to 10.9 changes the look to resemble frosted glass with rounded corners. OS X 10.10 and later revert to a two-dimensional appearance, similar to Mac OS X 10.4, although more translucent and with a iOS 7 blur effect.
In iPhone OS 1 to 3, the dock used a metal look which looks similar to the front of the Power Mac G5 (2003-2005) and Mac Pro(2006-2012 or 2019-). iPhone OS 3.2 for iPad and iOS 4 to 6 adopted the dock design from Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.7 which was used until iOS 7, which uses a similar dock from Mac OS X Tiger but with iOS 7 styled blur effects.[citation needed] In iOS 11, the dock for the iPad and iPhone X is redesigned to more resemble the macOS dock.[3][4]
Related software[edit]
The classic Mac OS does have a dock-like application called Launcher, which was first introduced with Macintosh Performa models in 1993 and later included as part of System 7.5.1. It performs the same basic function.[5] Also, add-ons such as DragThing added a dock for users of earlier versions.
Microsoft implemented a simplified dock feature in Windows 98 with the Quick Launch toolbar and this feature remained until Windows 7, where it was replaced by the Superbar, which implements functionality similar to the macOS Dock.
Various docks are also used in Linux and BSD. Some examples are Window Maker (which emulates the look and feel of the NeXTstep GUI), Docky, and Avant Window Navigator, KXDocker (amongst others) for KDE and various other gdesklet/adesklets docks, AfterStep's Wharf (a derivation from the NeXTstep UI), iTask NG (a module used with some Enlightenment-based Linux distributions such as gOS) and Blackbox's Slit.
Criticism[edit]
Bruce Tognazzini, a usability consultant who worked for Apple in the 1980s and 1990s before Mac OS X was developed, wrote an article in 2001 listing ten problems he saw with the Dock. This article was updated in 2004, removing two of the original criticisms and adding a new one. One of his concerns was that the Dock uses too much screen space. Another was that icons only show their labels when the pointer hovers over them, so similar-looking folders, files, and windows are difficult to distinguish. Tognazzini also criticized the fact that when icons are dragged out of the Dock, they vanish with no easy way to get them back; he called this behavior 'object annihilation'.[6]
John Siracusa, writing for Ars Technica, also pointed out some issues with the Dock around the releases of Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000. He noted that because the Dock is centered, adding and removing icons changes the location of the other icons.[7] In a review of Mac OS X v10.0 the following year, he also noted that the Dock does far too many tasks than it should for optimum ease-of-use, including launching apps, switching apps, opening files, and holding minimized windows.[8] Siracusa further criticized the Dock after the release of Mac OS X v10.5, noting that it was made less usable for the sake of eye-candy. Siracusa criticized the 3D look and reflections, the faint blue indicator for open applications, and less distinguishable files and folders.[9]
Thom Holwerda, a managing editor OSNews, stated some concerns with the Dock, including the facts that it grows in both directions, holds the Trash icon, and has no persistent labels. Holwerda also criticized the revised Dock appearance in Mac OS X v10.5.[10]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^tweet_btn(), Austin Modine 8 Oct 2008 at 19:02. 'Apple patents OS X Dock'. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
- ^Leopard dock resembles Sun's Project Looking Glass? - Engadget
- ^Tepper, Fitz. 'iOS 11 brings drag-and-drop, windows and a file system to iPad TechCrunch'. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
- ^Gartenberg, Chaim (June 5, 2017). 'iPad gets overhauled multitasking and other major software updates in iOS 11'. The Verge. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
- ^Moore, Charles (October 2, 2001). 'Using the Mac OS Launcher'. Archived from the original on July 27, 2014. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
- ^Tognazzini, Bruce (January 1, 2004). 'Top Nine Reasons the Apple Dock Still Sucks'. Retrieved December 20, 2006.
- ^John Siracusa (2000). 'Mac OS X DP3: Trial by Water'. Ars Technica. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
- ^John Siracusa (2001). 'Mac OS X 10.0 - User Interface'. Ars Technica. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
- ^John Siracusa (October 28, 2007). 'Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review'. Ars Technica. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
- ^Thom Howlerda (October 17, 2007). 'Common Usability Terms, pt. VI: the Dock'. OSNews. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
If you do not have an Android phone or tablet, you can still build apps with App Inventor. App Inventor provides an Android emulator, which works just like an Android but appears on your computer screen. So you can test your apps on an emulator and still distribute the app to others, even through the Play Store. Some schools and after-school programs develop primarily on emulators and provide a few Androids for final testing.
To use the emulator, you will first need to first install some software on your computer (this is not required for the wifi solution). Follow the instructions below for your operating system, then come back to this page to move on to starting the emulator
Important: If you are updating a previous installation of the App Inventor software, see How to update the App Inventor Software. You can check whether your computer is running the latest version of the software by visiting the page App Inventor 2 Connection Test.
Step 1. Install the App Inventor Setup Software
Step 2. Launch aiStarter (Windows & GNU/Linux only)
The Dicenomicon: Starter Mac Os 8
Using the emulator or the USB cable requires the use of a program named aiStarter. This program is the helper that permits the browser to communicate with the emulator or USB cable. The aiStarter program was installed when you installed the App Inventor Setup package. You do not need aiStarter if you are using only the wireless companion.
- On a Mac, aiStarter will start automatically when you log in to your account and it will run invisibly in the background.
- On Windows, there will be shortcuts to aiStarter from your Desktop, from the Start menu, from All Programs and from Startup Folder. If you want to use the emulator with App Inventor, you will need to manually launch aiStarter on your computer when you log in. You can start aiStarter this by clicking the icon on your desktop or using the entry in your start menu.
The aiStarter Icon on WindowsTo launch aiStarter on Windows, double click on the icon (shown above). You'll know that you've successfully launched aiStarter when you see a window like the following:
- On GNU/Linux, aiStarter will be in the folder /usr/google/appinventor/commands-for-Appinventor and you'll need to launch it manually. You can launch it from the command line with/usr/google/appinventor/commands-for-appinventor/aiStarter &
Step 3. Open an App Inventor project and connect it to the emulator
First, go to App Inventor and open a project (or create a new one -- use Project > Start New Project and give your project a name).
Then, from App Inventor's menu (on the App Inventor cloud-based software at ai2.appinventor.mit.edu), go to the Connect Menu and click the Emulator option.
You'll get a notice saying that the emulator is connecting. Starting the emulator can take a couple of minutes. You may see update screens like the following as the emulator starts up:
The emulator will initially appear with an empty black screen (#1). Wait until the emulator is ready, with a colored screen background (#2). Even after the background appears, you should wait until the emulated phone has finished preparing its SD card: there will be a notice at the top of the phone screen while the card is being prepared. When connected, the emulator will launch and show the app you have open in App Inventor.
#1 #2 #3 #4