I've read this Forum and it appears that many of the requested items are included in those I added in my copy of Circle Dock, so I'm making available my latest version.

The changes I've made include the following:

• 1. Folder Stacks: It is now very easy to add a Folder Stack to your Dock - see Add -> Folder Stack. This command adds a blank folder icon on your Dock and opens the Settings Dialog to allow you to change the icon used to represent the Folder Stack and give it a unique name. Do not make any other changes! After closing the Settings Dialog, left-click on your new folder and select the path that should be opened; ignore the icon field here.
  
  Important Note: This ability relies on StackDocklet.exe (version 1) being in your Systems\Miscellaneous folder and its associated DLL in System\Miscellaneous\StackDoclet. Copies of both these items are included in the Zip file.
• 2. Circle Dock can remain hidden after loading - useful if you include this program in your Windows Startup folder. In fact, in common with other Dock programs, it will briefly show itself on loading but will then hide itself. See "General" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 3. Circle Dock will optionally always display the top level each time it is displayed. See "General" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 4. Circle Dock can auto-hide itself if you move the mouse pointer outside its background's boundary, but not necessarily immediately: it uses a value based on the "dwell time" used for toggling its visibility if the cursor is at the top/left/right/bottom edges of the screen. See "Toggling" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 5. Added a new menu item: "AutoHide" to allow you to toggle AutoHide on and off. It will be necessary for you to disable AutoHide when dragging-and-dropping new items onto the Dock. Note this toggle is NOT persistent and the setting for AutoHide (from Configuration Dialog) will be used the next time you start Circle Dock.
• 6. You can force Circle Dock's background to be completely on-screen by disabling both "Centre around cursor  when shown" and "Lock Dock to current position". See "Location" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 7. The maximum size for the background is now the visible screen height (less a few pixels). This change was necessary to allow for completely showing the Dock (#5 above).
• 8. Enabled "Show Labels on Mouse-over" option so that labels can either be permanently shown or only shown when the mouse pointer is over the item. (Eric had this in the UI but had not added code to make it functional.) See "Labels" in Configuration Dialog.
• 9. Added an option - "Fast Draw" - which displays each item as it is created. If unchecked, the previous behaviour (show all items after last item is created) is used. Enabling this item may be visually better on slow PCs. (Eric had written the code for this but not added an enabling option in the UI.) See "General" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 10.The settings for Dock Rotation (Configuration Dialog -> General) were confusing. Circle Dock actually uses the value for 'Key Presses / Mouse wheel scrolls' whilst 'Set Rotation' displayed the number of Radians of the last rotation performed - this would be negative if the last rotation was counter-clockwise. The two controls are now linked, modifying one is reflected in the other. I've also added the necessary conversion code so that 'Set Rotation' displays Degrees rather than Radians.
• 11.Added a button to make it easier to set the optimum rotation values based on the number of items to be placed - set by the values in 'Dock Shape'.
• 12.Added hints to some of the more esoteric configuration items.

Attached to this post are two Zip files. The "Unofficial" upgrade should be unzipped to your Circle Dock Folder - ensure that you also unzip the support files to their correct folders. The second Zip file contains my latest source for those who are interested.

One thing that Eric hasn't yet implemented is elliptical dock shape. I do have some code for drawing and plotting positions on an ellipses and will look at implementing this. However, the math involved is quite complex and, more importantly, time-consuming: the time taken to paint each level will be somewhat slower. Rotating an elliptical dock may not be practicable - for the same reasons. Finally, as ellipses can have varying widths and heights, it may be better for Circle Dock to handle the drawing/painting of this, rather than use bitmap files.

Enjoy the update and let me know if you find any problems!


Mark

I have a low spec portable computer and sometime, not too often, I lag while switch from from folder to folder within Circle Dock. Would you guys know some options I could disable so it would be less requesting for my small pc?
Example, I disabled the rotation.
Should I disable the shading/fading within animation?
Any hints? =)

And excuse my poor computer skills.

MS Windows XP Home SP3
Intel Atom CPU N280 @ 1,66GHz, 2,0GB, Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset Family.

-Trianox (September 26, 2009, 09:23 PM)

I also run Circle Dock on a netbook, with similar specs to yours, and there's absolutely no need to disable rotation or disable shading/fading: they all work fine. However, the program is configured to wait until all the Items (or Icons) for a given layer have been created before it displays them. This delay is very noticeable on low-powered PCs such as netbooks.

Using Windows Notepad (not Wordpad) you can open CONFIG.INI which you will find in the program's SYSTEM\SETTINGS folder and change the first line following "[General]" which you will find says:
Change this to read: then save the file and you'll find that the program appears quicker.

I'll shortly be uploading an unofficial update ("unofficial" because I'm not the program's author) which includes the above ability as an option in the Configuration Dialog. The update includes a further 10 or so improvements and bug fixes.


Mark