News and announcements
GLX-Dock 2.3 released !
Written for Cairo-Dock Project by Fabounet on 2011-04-25
GLX-Dock 2.3 released !
see the article in the link below for a complete description of this new version.
Updated . Read more
GLX-Dock 2.2.1 and beyond
Written for Cairo-Dock Project by Fabounet on 2010-11-15
A hard work has been made to deliver the 2.2.0 before Ubuntu 10.10's release. This could be done just in time !
Now the 2.2.1 is already in a good progress. It's mainly an improvment version, designed to polish all the points that couldn't be because of a short timing, and also to better integrate with the latest news of the Ubuntu 10.10 stack.
A long-term roadmap is also available here "https:/
An official beta release of the 2.2 version of GLX-Dock is available.
Written for Cairo-Dock Project by Matthieu Baerts on 2010-07-28
An official beta release of the 2.2 version of GLX-Dock is available.
The main goal of this version is to approach the usability of the <your desktop environment here>-panel.
To reach it, we aimed at making an "Unity" theme, based on the recent interesting remarks of Canonical.
What's new?
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4 points were targeted :
* Be unobstrusive :
GLX-Dock now has 2 new visibility modes: "hide whenever the dock overlaps the active window" and "hide whenever the dock overlaps any window".
The dock will hide itself anytime it could get in your way, and will be visible otherwise.
You can choose between several smooth hiding animations: fade-out, semi-transparent, move-down, etc.
To make things better, icons that should draw your attention (like a message in the Pidgin applet or an alarm in the Clock applet) are visible (and animated) even when the dock is hidden.
Desklets (applets that are detached from the dock) can also be placed on your desktop without preventing you from clicking on what's behind.
Here is a short demo: http://
* Be useful:
Some new key functionnalities make the dock a swiss-knife : possibility to manage tasks in the Clock's calendar, possibility to lock the screen in the Logout applet, possibility to use tiny URLs in the Drop-and-Share applet, the Dustbin applet handles all the drives, etc.
The Me-Menu and Messaging-Menu applets developed by Canonical for the gnome-panel can also be added to the dock in 1 click.
For those who want to write applets easily and in an language, the Dbus API has also gained some new functions.
http://
* Be simple:
All the themes (including the default one) have been polished, they are pretty and functionnal after you select them.
The simple config panel now lets you set up most of the parameters you'd like to change in the first 5 minutes.
The advanced config panel is still present for those of you who want to tweak their theme, but you probably don't need it any more for a basic usage.
* Unity:
For this purpose, a new view has been added : the "panel" view. It turns the Dock into a pretty panel.
Also, since netbooks have a small screen footprint, it's a good idea to spread icons over several main docks. Therefore, it's now possible to create as many docks as you want, and to configure them independently (position, visibility, view, background).
Here is a short demo: http://
To try it:
---------
If you're under Ubuntu >= 9.04 :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cairo-
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cairo-dock cairo-dock-plug-ins
otherwise :
echo "deb http://
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cairo-dock cairo-dock-plug-ins
It is already very stable, but as any beta, it can contain some bugs.
The work is now focusing on fixing them all.
We appreciate any kind of contribution: bug reports, feedbacks, videos, themes, translations, patches, applets, etc
Cairo-Dock 2.1.3 is out !
Written for Cairo-Dock Project by Matthieu Baerts on 2010-02-14
After 3 months of hard work, the new version of GLX-Dock/Cairo-Dock (2.1.3) is out !
http://
**The News: **
The most visible change is probably the new configuration panel, which has been refined so that even my Mom could configure the dock !
This version is also the opportunity to fix a lot of the existing problems (smoother auto-hide, automatic detection of indirect rendering for Intel/ATI cards, etc)
Few other changes will also make your dock looks more polish and convenient :
Thumnbails of windows now have an emblem to help recognize the application.
Icons pointing on sub-docks can display the sub-dock's content to quickly know what is inside the sub-dock.
When an application demands your attention, only its icon will appear when the dock is hidden, so that you are quietly notified of any event even when your dock is hidden.
The ShowDesktop applet lets you change the resolution of the screen in 1 click.
The Dnd2Share applet which is used to quickly share some text/picture/
>Some screenshots of these new things are avaible there => http://
**The Dbus API: **
But the less visible and yet most important change is probably the release of the 1.0 version of the DBus API.
This lets you control your dock from an external program (the terminal, a script, etc).
It even lets you write complete applets in any language (there are already some demos in Python, Vala, Mono or even Bash !).
A full documentation is available here :
http://
It is very comprehensive and comes with a lot of exemples, and even a functionnal demonstration applet.
The Dbus API has already been used to write several applets (a Gnomenu applet, an xchat applet, a Calendar applet, etc).
Let's see a short exemple :
Be sure that the Dbus plug-in is active in the config panel, and run the following command in a terminal :
$ dbus-send --session --dest=
Your dock is now hidden ! Now run the opposite command :
$ dbus-send --session --dest=
Your dock is back ! Although this exemple may look trivial, it shows you have a complete control over your dock, its icons, and its desklets.
Don't hesitate to share your own applet here with others users !
**How to grab it: **
Tarballs: https:/
Some explanations about the compilation http://
Debian/Ubuntu: Our repository is now available there http://
PS: Follow us on identi.ca (identi.
PS 2: Due to a crappy registrar (vivadomaine.com), the domaine name cairo-dock.org is no longer available. But now, you can find all our "tools" (wiki, forum, doc, dépôt, etc.) on glx-dock.org !
cairo-dock.org is temporally down !
Written for Cairo-Dock Project by Matthieu Baerts on 2010-01-06
The domain name of Cairo-Dock (cairo-dock.org) is temporally down ! (2010-01-06)
The name cairo-dock.org is not directly accessible at the moment. This affects the forum, the wiki, the repository, and the themes. (not our ppa's, bzr and launchpad bug tracker).
But you can also find our website with its forum and wiki there : http://
It will be back soon, sorry for that...
The Cairo-Dock team.
EDIT: the come back of this domain name is not planned until the end of January 2010. Please wait ;)
EDIT 2: if you want download another theme (general, gauges, clock, etc.), you can simply use this command :
cairo-dock -S themes.
EDIT 3: about our ppa, look at this : https:/
EDIT 4: Finally, we have lost our domaine name and we are there : http://
EDIT5: The latest stable release uses the newer address in order to download themes' lists ! Please upgrade it !
Updated . Read more
