[bugs, annoyances, and shortcomings] - yes some might be repeats, no i didn't forget this is labeled "beta".
- start menu docklet does not display properly, notably [if not only] on the right-hand side of it. when the start menu is called up by normal means however, it displays fine. perhaps an option to leave the start menu where we expect to find it [lower left] rather than float would allow us to use one if the other doesn't work/suit our tastes~
- tabbed dock icons still "zoom/grow" by duplicating a larger image on top of the original icon; leading to ugly effects with certain shapes and transparencies.
- minimizing/restore animation is dreadfully slow, and seems to have no way to be set to normal aside from editing the ini file. there is an option to allow the shift key to make it even more unbearably slow, but where's the option to make it not take ages without holding down an extra button?
- some programs do not respond well to right clicking the icon; photoshop and yahoo messenger have both displayed various issues for me. photoshop leading to a crash; while yahoo had the issue of no text being visable in the context menu that pops up from right clicking the icon.
- flyout menus depending on size can take ages to load or crash, even before reaching excessive amounts of items.
- clock hands still presumably unchangeable and ugly; the real issue being that at larger icon sizes it is obvious that the hands are too small and pixelation becomes great, a higher quality 256x256 version would take care of that.
- in tabbed docks, the text displayed when hovering over an icon sometimes stays displayed even when the mouse has been withdrawn from that item; it also tends to display behind the dock or an application.
- in tabbed docks, the +/- buttons look out of place/abruptly off-centered due to not having reflections to match the other icons they sit beside.
- lack of hotspots leaves floating tabbed docks useless, [my personal reason for originally purchasing OD+] however it was also always a complaint/hope of mine that a hotkey feature would be implemented that would call up and bring a dock to the front, allowing you to bind it to a mouse, tablet, or keyboard. this would let you go straight to the dock rather than going from center of your screen to the edge in order to bring up the dock, and then from the edge back to the center to actually use access the dock.
-- this option to access the tabbed dock from the taskbar or the tray would be a tolerable alternative for me in the meantime, but when set to "show in taskbar", that link only shows up in the "windows taskbar", and not the "objectdock taskbar". when set to display in tray rather than task though, it shows up in both the "windows tray" and the "objectdock tray", but this doesn't help me out any as my love and reason for use of object dock was to simplify and streamline my workflow. having 3-4 docks and/or the taskbar on top of it just creates clutter and makes using my computer feel like i'm playing whack-a-mole everytime i wish to do even the smallest of things.
- while objectdock is running, opening files which in turn cause applications to open can cause the window to load behind all others rather than in front [namely picture viewer does this when an image file is opened]
- when dragging/dropping icons; ghosting artifacts sometimes linger until the application is reloaded. in the case of dragging from a zooming dock to a tabbed dock, the reflection will always ghost and remain at whatever edge it originated from until reloaded.
- when changing an icon for an entry, the pop-up window likes to have a balloon yelling "hey try out the handy dandy search feature", but after seeing it all this time, the only thing it's doing is repeatedly getting in the way of either an icon i want to select or the scroll-bar.
- quitting object dock is a pain. what happened to "right-click > quit"?
- the old object dock zoomers used to flicker and not render properly; now that we can render them properly, application windows and desktop icons seem to be the ones subject to flickering at times.
- zooming docks with "accessibility" set to normal are often delayed to show up over an existing window.
- still restrained to the choice of "display tasks/programs or display tray/background" but not both.
- in some instances [notably photoshop] clicking an icon will maximize/restore that window when it is minimized, but won't minimize when it is maximized.
- reflections in zooming docks jitter up and down by 1 pixel as you scroll through them, not matching up to the smoothness that the icon itself displays.
- sublevel separation feature still no longer exists and hasn't in the other latest full versions either, despite being an original and heavily relied upon feature in previous releases. in the past you could use varied icons to differentiate between things like the messenger contact list and the messenger conversation windows; now they are all forced to share the same icon and are indistinguishable.
- text for tabs has a huge lack of options, but one that was never addressed before was being able to make the active and inactive tabs discernible. even when changing text and color was an option, all the tabs were treated the same.
- allow us to change the defaults or don't assign them [assign first in list?~]. when icons/docks that are unwanted by the user end up removed, creating new ones causes the annoyance of dealing with invisible items until new images/backgrounds are assigned to them.
- transparency options for tabbed docks lacks what is offered for zoomers.
- different backgrounds per tab maybe?~
- an alternative to the flyout menu would be much appreciated, as it becomes nearly useless when more than a handful of items are in it. the highly praised stacks/grid which doesn't leave you waiting for the item you're looking for to finally spin around would be a blessing.
- the flyout menu arrows, +/- icons, and running indicators would benefit from methods of changing them that don't involve overwriting files.
- alignment options in tabbed docks would be nice; such as aligning icons to the right or center instead of forced left. seems a decent compromise since "floating" tabbed docks can't stretch like zoomers without risking going off the screen.
- allow tabbed docks that are on the edges to function like zoomers... or rather allow zoomers to have tabs~
[unrelated to the development of the dock itself~]
- for the love of god, please clarify/revise, purchasing and upgrade information.
many people such as myself were either correct or confused in believing that when we bought object dock plus, we were told that our purchase included all future upgrades. while i can't find that text after all these years, i have however been looking at THIS text for about half a decade...
"If you have already purchased a full version, you can have an email sent to you with the url to download the most up-to-date version.".
it's because of things like this that so many of us were pissed off to find out that we're expected to pay for something we already bought.
if it's not true that we get the subsequent upgrades to the program we purchased as part of it, i'd feel better to not stare at the lie. not to mention the link provided that claims to have the download sent to you 404's; presumably because this was tossed out when impulse was forced on us in order to control usage, and counter pirating.
1.9 to 2.0 is no less of an upgraded version than 1.8 to 1.9 is, especially in objectdock's case. it is a program that never had its original flaws, bugs, and errors fixed even to this day where 1.9 is considered "final". even if we're expected to treat these as entirely different programs, the situation stands that the comparison to the first and second version of OD is that the "new" one has less features and more problems than the original; most of these problems are ones that were never remedied in the previous versions and are now carried over to its successor.
in that light, we've more or less been asked to buy the beta of a new version for a program we already bought, but was easily arguable to have never completed it's beta phase to begin with either.
why the above bolded statement no longer holds truth is beyond me, but in absolute certainty; leaving it there will only cause frustration.
despite the knowledge that stardock only ever bothered to have one guy work on this program, and the knowledge that he's pretty much required to prioritize every other endeavor before working on OD, and yanked off of it to do something else every time it so much as starts to seemingly get attention; the indisputable truth is that objectdock has always had pitiful support, response, and effort invested over the years by every comparison. it's one saving grace and the reason many of us tolerated this was because we were under the impression that whenever jeff did get around to working on it, those of us who already purchased it were already paid up for the program and all future updates... when they finally got here. we "knew" [read believed] that when it finally did come out, we wouldn't have to pay for the version that finally resolved the constant and minor errors/shortcomings that have been present and neglected for the last 5 years, even though we also "knew" it would probably be 10 more years before any effort to fix them was invested.
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in short, throughout objectdock's history, it "feels like"...
we have purchased and fallen in love with a lackluster program because of the potential it has/had, far more than what it actually delivers on. we heard promises, yet we were only given enough "tiny" and exceedingly "slow" substance/improvements [not to mention empty assurances] over the years to keep us from giving up on it altogether. but when the lack of investment in its development led to lack of success; the intent in gaining revenue from OD by putting forth the necessary effort into it to attract new customers was tossed out and replaced with the intent to add just enough changes to warrant calling it 2.0 and using it as an excuse for billing the people who already paid for it a second time...
all backed by the long-since worn out premise that we can "hope" to finally see a completed [not just "stable"] version released, with the "cry-wolf" assurances that this time it's actually going to have the support it needs in order to be.
because of that; object dock seems akin to a new years resolution to quit smoking. a few month after the promise is made, it's seemingly forgotten about completely and in the end it seems evident; it was just "blowing smoke".
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i think we'd all much prefer to hear things that sound like truth, such as "we're undermanned", than to hear "the wheels are rolling, the support is there, and we'll make effort on the feedback- so stay tuned and get ready".
on the other hand, even the "truth" ends up sounding like "we're aware we can only carry 10 projects at once, but we're going to try juggling 50 even if all 50 have to suffer or a few get dropped altogether".
i just can't buy that "people can't be found that know how to do this, and want to make money" when so many other people/places do do this type of stuff in timely manner, and often even offer it for free.
my personal aggravation isn't that progress is slow, it's that work on it is so often halted and non-existent at all for long periods of time.
moving on...
[ 
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- zooming docks are now finally able to be skinned correctly with this "true-stretch" addition. for this alone, my love surpasses most of the shortcomings i can name, and at last i can compile and release the skins i've made for docks as early on as ones that predated OD [such as y-z] that object dock never would render properly before. indeed.
- the recycle bin works now~
- when changing backgrounds, dock previews are full and easy to distinguish instead of just having the tab stand in for a preview of the entire dock itself.
- the settings window makeover takes care of a lot of old nuisances that were present when editing multiple docks in the past.
- re-sexy-flections. "", and lots of it. [apple made me jealous again]
- new icon/dock transparency options and blurred effect gives more potential for innovative and creative skins.
- ability to hide a dock rather than outright delete it makes testing the backgrounds we create so much easier since we can create a number of docks that exist solely for testing purposes and then hide/reuse them later on.
- for not completely dropping the ball yet, even if we do have to sit through juggling show.
...how's that for "2.0 feedback"?
:edit: i just found that the issue of windows picture viewer loading behind other windows seems/appears to correlate with icon position. if i double click an icon on the left-hand side where windows icons generally appear, then the picture viewer tends to load behind all others; if i click on an image on the right-hand side of my desktop though, it usually wants to opens in front of all others.
