DocbarX. It's been there in almost all my screenshots. I reiterated it overandoverandoveragain so much that it seems to be there by default in Ubuntu. But it isn't and with arrival of the Unity interface, its days as an addon applet are almost numbered. Still, it could live on in the classic desktop of Natty.
So what is it? Its an applet, sitting on the taskbar that tries to emulate the Powerbar (taskbar) first introduced in Windows7. It was a popular alternative to the traditional windows list and was no surprise to me when a applet emulating some features of the Powerbar made way into the Linux world. Dockbar and soon DocbarX (not to be confused as same thing, they are completely different) was a hit for those who want to pimp Linux all day long. Soon, things fell in place and preview windows were showing correctly and right-click menus got better.
It's a must need for Linux users wanting to change to a Windows look and its also frowned upon by the purist who feel nothing Window-ish should make way to the Linux world. Since I'm in the former group (sometimes) and docbarX is as free as free can be. I used docbarX in my Fake Unity setup, a thing of the past now.
Pros
Free, open source
Theme-able. (Powerbar is not). There are a number of themes to choose from. The themes themselves can be customised as well.
Can be used in Docky and AWN (Avant Window Navigator), docks available for the Linux world.
Able to emulate Powerbar very well. Opacity of windows on hover, multiple preview windows... its all there.
It fits in well with the system wide theme applied to the taskbar.
Looks really good alongside Gnomenu replacing the default application menu
Well integrated to work with four workareas. Default option is windows in other workareas won't show up in the active workarea's docbarX.
Integrated with Zeitgeist. The recent and most used list in the right click menu is powered by Zeitgeist.
Cons
Not able to pin all programs. Most noticeably Java programs such as jDownloader.
Doesn't handle multiple window programs such as GIMP very well.
Doesn't show progress bars like it does in Powerbar (progress of files being copied, downloaded etc)
Firefox/Chrome/Opera tabs doesn't show up in the preview. Only the active tab is shown.
Dull work around for minimised windows. Seen screenshot
Preview
Four windows showing up nicely on the preview
Selected window in the preview area opacified
And the same happen for the next
Right click menu showing a lot of information, namely, recent and most used files of that application
Minismised windows have a very dull preview... something to look into
Installation More details about docbarX and its installation can be found at Gnome-look.org by clicking here. Read the page and get it, if you are not using Unity.
For Ubuntu users. All you need to do if you use Ubuntu 9.10 or newer is to write these two commands in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dockbar-main/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dockbarx
You can also install the dockbarx-themes-extra package which contains quite a few beautiful themes:
sudo apt-get install dockbarx-themes-extra
To be able to access DockbarX's recent and most used menus for openoffice, you need update zeitgeist to a newer version. If you an older version of ubuntu than 10.10, you need to update zeitgeist to get recent and most used menus for any program.
. It was a popular alternative to the traditional windows list and was no surprise to me when a applet emulating some features of the Powerbar made way into the Linux world. Dockbar and soon DocbarX (not to be confused as same thing, they are completely different) was a hit for those who want to pimp Linux all day long. Soon, things fell in place and preview windows were showing correctly and right-click menus got better.
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