Circle Dock belongs to a genre of programs known collectively as "Application Docks and
Launchers" which first appeared on Apple's Macintosh computers and later on Windows-based
PCs. Most of these programs use a single line of items, unlike Circle Dock which uses "rings". In
fact, the term "Circle Dock" is now a bit of a misnomer since it can also present itself as an
elliptical dock.
Application Docks and Launchers are designed to hold shortcuts to programs and display them in
a convenient form. "Ah, but isn't that what the Desktop is designed to do?", you ask. Well, yes it
is, but if you have a few windows open, finding the right Desktop shortcut can be fiddly and
inconvenient. Circle Dock will conveniently appear when you need it and disappear when you
don't.
Unlike other Dock programs - and indeed the Desktop - Circle Dock allows you to have multiple
layers so that you can group similar, or allied, items within folders. Folders can contain other
folders as well as documents and programs.
Now for those who want a bit of technical information, Circle Dock is a multi-layered, multi-threaded application. At the base is the (hidden) Main Window which is responsible for controlling
the application as well as sending and receiving messages from the Dock's other windows. All the
visible elements - the background, centre button, dock items and their labels - are all unique
windows created, positioned, synchronised and controlled by the Main Window.
Compared to other similar programs, Circle Dock is very frugal with memory: with 8 Dock Items
defined and the Dock running but hidden, Circle Dock consumes around 600 KiB on the author's
32-bit Windows 7 PC. On the same PC and with the same number of dock items, Rocket Dock
requires in excess of 6 MiB - ten times more than Circle Dock! The only time Circle Dock will
consume a significant amount of memory is when the main Properties dialog is displayed;
however once this dialog is dismissed, the program's housekeeping routines quickly free-up
memory and return it to the system pool.
