Suggestion: Exclude Dock area from desktop in Unity

[thully]

In Beta 4, Unity uses the entire screen - including the Dock - as the Windows desktop.

Thus, maximizing a window makes part of it appear underneath the Dock. Could this be fixed in the next version - either by excluding the Dock or by offering this as an option as Parallels Coherence does?

[dp_fusion]

Is there a way to know where the dock is located? I put mine on the left side as my screen is much wider than tall, and I keep it hidden unless it is moused.

[furfurfur]

I'd vote for this too. My Dock is on the left, and I get the same issue.

[pipebender]

This issue def need to be addressed before the final release. Windows' apps under Unity should act and feel like OSX apps.

[pfoxhoven]

I echo this as well -- a problem for many applications. Parallels had an option to "exclude dock area" when in Coherence mode so maximizing windows applications didn't go behind the dock just like native OSX apps don't....

[barnys]

I agree with you guys!

Also I don't know if any of you is using the experimental option to display the taskbar. It is great but I have found two problems so far. One is that the taskbar goes under the dock, and the second is that once the start button is clicked, the menu stays up, even if you click away in other windows or Mac applications.

See my comment in the following posting: http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=88329&tstart=0

Thanks,

[Doobla]

I rather like having the task bar appear under my dock since the only things I am interested in are the start menu and the notification area by the clock.

It is quite annoying having my applications maximize themselves under the dock though. I agree this should be fixed prior to GA release as it is a major usability issue.

[admin]

I'll agree that maximized Unity applications should avoid the dock (i.e. get the same size as a maximized native Mac application). But for the taskbar/dock overlap issue -- if that bothers you, I'd really recommend that you put the taskbar and dock on different edges of the screen; that's under your power to control today.

(Aside: my opinion is that both the taskbar and dock belong at the side of the screen, not the bottom, since vertical space is more scarce than horizontal space on today's displays.)

[2drinksbehind]

Can't believe this was talked about 2 years ago and still wasn't fixed in Fusion 3. IMO, this being missing is a bug. I was evaluating Fusion 3 and it's the first version that competes favorably with Parallels from a performance standpoint (at least for my use case). This kind of stuff is just killing it though. I may end up sticking with Parallels because Coherence is still so much superior to Unity and VMWare seems to regard Unity as an unimportant feature.

[Pbryanw]

Firstly, welcome to the forum.

But...???...The original problem (as described by the original poster) has been fixed in Fusion 3, and has been ever since version 2 if I recall correctly.

Maximise a Window in Unity mode and it will maximise up to the Dock but not beyond that, which is what the OP wanted.

Anyway, nothing to see here - please move along

[rhind]

Firstly, welcome to the forum.

But...???...The original problem (as described by the original poster) has been fixed in Fusion 3, and has been ever since version 2 if I recall correctly.

Maximise a Window in Unity mode and it will maximise up to the Dock but not beyond that, which is what the OP wanted.

Maximised windows yes, but if you run a full screen app (such as remote desktop) in unity in version 3, it will not exclude the dock area and part of its window will be under it. This can also be seen by showing the task bar in unity mode, it will use area under the dock. So somehow Fusion is not letting maximised apps under the dock, not the actual virtual screen which is what I'd like to see (as Parallels does).

[2drinksbehind]

I did notice after I posted this that for maximized windows it was working correctly. My problem is the same as what rhind describes, specifically I was using RDP (something I do a ton) and couldn't get to the task bar on the remote machine because it was under the dock. I'm stuck with changing the dock to auto hide, which I really don't like doing.

[Pbryanw]

Maximised windows yes, but if you run a full screen app (such as remote desktop) in unity in version 3, it will not exclude the dock area and part of its window will be under it. This can also be seen by showing the task bar in unity mode, it will use area under the dock. So somehow Fusion is not letting maximised apps under the dock, not the actual virtual screen which is what I'd like to see (as Parallels does).

Yes, that makes it clearer. As I always choose to hide the taskbar, and don't use fullscreen apps, I have not come across this problem before.

And as 2drinksbehind pointed out, this feature/bug has not been implemented/fixed yet.

The only workaround seems to be either to move the dock to the top or side of the screen, or to size your start menu as large as your dock, and set it to not autohide as suggested in this thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/88329

I can only assume that the reason this bug hasn't been fixed yet is that so few people use Unity in this way (which I'm inclined to believe is not true).

[rcork77]

In response to Pbryanw:

I beg to differ. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I have Windows 7 Home Premium VM guest running on 10.6.1 host and if I open Internet Explorer in Unity, then click maximize, it maximizes to the bottom of the screen behind the dock. Feels like VMware still has some work to do here.

[Pbryanw]

Just wondering if this has been happening since Fusion 3, as I've had a few problems with Unity since upgrading.

No problems with Fusion v2, so there may be some bugs that need fixing with the new version.

I believe the taskbar problem, however, has been there since v2 or earlier.

[rhind]

Just wondering if this has been happening since Fusion 3, as I've had a few problems with Unity since upgrading.

No problems with Fusion v2, so there may be some bugs that need fixing with the new version.

I believe the taskbar problem, however, has been there since v2 or earlier.

There are a few issues with Unity in v3 (some which are new, some which are due to new features). See http://communities.vmware.com/thread/240874?tstart=0 and http://communities.vmware.com/thread/241226?tstart=10

Hopefully these can be addressed soon as I'm currently switching my development activities between P5 and VF3 and finding P5 a bit better to use unfortunately (mainly because I really like VMWare's keyboard-accessible menu bar plugin)