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Amazing Dock trick to Impress your Friends!

command-tab.com — ..The Dock process will be killed, and it will disappear, leaving the Safari window with nowhere to go. The window will freeze mid-transition. The cool part is that the window is still responsive, and you can scroll around and see the content transform in real-time.

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 12, 2006

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  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+43Seriously, if you could do this on Windows we'd be railing against Microsoft for their crappy software.
  • foovo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+37I though this said "Amazing Dick trick to Impress your Friends".
  • stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22http://duggmirror.com/apple/Amazing_Dock_trick_to_Impress_your_Friends
  • wembley, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24@ywong
    Actually I thought it showed off the strength of OS X's design. Sure its an event that wasn't thought of and caught by the programmer. But in-spite of this, it doesn't crash or lockup the app... its still usable and when the dock relaunches you can finish minimizing it.

    On windows, the app would probably hang and display the "This application has stopped responding, feel free to repeatedly click the [End Now] button while I ignore you" dialog.
  • speedyrev, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21I get that in my spam folder all the time
  • Powerdrift, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20It states that in the instructions.
  • CatfishJones, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20I'd be embarrassed if I tried to pass off someones comment from an earlier story as an original submission. I'm sure the knowledge has been around for a while but the date stamps on this article and blizzwatch's comment in http://www.digg.com/apple/Cool_things_you_can_do_on_a_Mac seem a little convenient.

    Maybe I'm just paranoid.
  • psylence, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15So a frozenly deformed window on a Mac is "always thinking"... Mmmkaay.....
  • xtr3m, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17That's it -- I'm buying a Mac!
  • BillyEveryteen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Amazing!
  • Cyrus89, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11"goes to nearest apple store...."
  • ericeman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14That's actually quite fun to do.... I'm writing this from a freaking transformed window.
  • Carbamide, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Lame to censor your own curse words. ***** ***** *****
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9http://www.duggmirror.com/apple/Amazing_Dock_trick_to_Impress_your_Friends/
  • Hoss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Doing it with video windows is fun.
  • Hoss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Here is a screenshot of a video playing after doing this trick, it just makes me laugh.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/94386820@N00/241256181/

  • TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7How is it a bug? The window was thrown to redraw to make a genie effect and its destination was killed. A bug would make it panic or close. You gave the window a finish line to go for, and the finish line was killed so it stopped. What's so bad with that? Anything close to this in windows would cause an error and an unstable OS. If anything this shows the true layering of OS X!!!!!!

    Also have u guys noticed the speed of the genie effect is increased every time you do this trick?
  • reb42, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Works with any app... I'm typing this from a f*****-up Firefox window. Just to make that clear.
  • Seidoger, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Get them drunk before. I did!
  • ringo380, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It doesn't matter, nobody actually cares about the "impress your friends" part, and it's obnoxous when someone takes it seriously and makes a weak attempt at superiority by pointing out something that everyone else really already knows.

    Also known as a buzzkill, or a downer.

    That's why he's getting dugg down.
  • Virion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Aside from doing this with a browser or video player, the real fun is doing it with a 3d app, then moving around the distorted game. Like a House of Mirrors!
  • firsttube, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5that is coming in leopard, actually. complete resolution independence. Right now you can do that at any given moment, with exposé.
  • NightRush, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Mac users are friends..
  • ggko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5How is this an embarrassing bug? The user can kill the dock, interrupting the genie effect minimization, and while frozen in its deformed shape, the window STILL FUNCTIONS.

    If the dock zorched itself during a keynote demo, Jobs would probably point out the still functioning window as a testament to how robust OS X is ... then switch to his backup system without losing a beat.

    Microsoft on the other hand, we all know how their demos killer delete select all.
  • TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like to plot some vector calc functions in graphing calculator with this. Funny that vector calculus and vector graphics may eliminate DPI altogether.
  • netcrusher88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3this is an ancient trick - it's fun though
  • 3Den, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That's neat and all.. but what I really think is missing is a way to use the window scaling and distortion capabilities to re-size windows independently.

    I'd lvoe to be able to open up a few browser windows and run them at 1/4 size so I can keep an eye on more things... there seems to be no reason for this feature to be missing, as the OS is perfectly capable of doing it.
  • gagravaar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree, why is it a bug?

    It would be a bug if the Dock process, in being killed half way through a minimise, crashed the application that was being minimised.

    What happens, is that the window, seeing that the Dock is no longer running, simply waits until the Dock process starts again. It's not frozen, it's still active. I'd say that's pretty slick programming.

    As a side effect, the window is still clickable and active, but that's not a bug, that's a pretty nice feature showing the power of the system.
  • mobilehavoc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This also works on Linux with XGL/Compiz...just 'killall gnome-panel' instead of dock.

  • Byroncoughlin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Fun with scrolling itunes and the visualizers
  • TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It is a bug I admit. But I love how such a crazy look of a window doesn't affect the OS one bit!! In windows when the resources get low, the window draws slow or actions by the mouse or laggy or lost. In OS X it has the notion of "yea the window looks dumb, you can still use it though!" 

    I really feel this dumb trick shows something that windows may never have. The drawing of a window Open GL and actions affecting the app and maybe even the operating system DO NOT CARE! It shows the UI and the actual actions by the user and operations of the OS are truly seperate. 

    Windows boys reading this you know anything close to this would result in you saving your porn and a restart!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Actually, I'd be glad to find a window that's still responsive whenever there's a bug or crash :)
  • firsttube, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6If it happened in windows, i don't think the window would still be usable.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I posted a video of my Mac doing this a while ago.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nVD7dbgVnw
  • tonyr1988, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5What in the world gave you the idea that this was all intentional?
  • ericthedude, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Oh yeah real embarrassing. Like when Vista bites the dust 'cause some random data was thrown at it. http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-051.htm
  • voyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2hit cmd + m once the window is "stuck" for a cool "page fall" effect!

    (woops did not mean to reply to this certain post within this thread)
  • bugeyedmonster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A) This totally closed platform has been around for far longer than any of the mega popular OSS offerings. And we've been talking about it for far longer as well.

    B) Totally closed? Weenie. It's called Darwin, and it's open source. No, the beautiful GUI layer isn't open source, but the underlying OS is, which is more than enough to make it NOT totally closed.

    Catch a clue.
  • thomashallock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I can't wait to do this to some of the floor models at the Apple, CompUSA, & Fry's and walk away.
  • stuartjmoore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2command + alt + esc -> finder -> relaunch
  • TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hey I dugg you up! Nothing like an OS X eye candy transition never even being done right in XP or Vista. Photocopiers can never get the original right 100%.
  • ElBob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Its not quite the same. Killing explorer is killing a process that is completely unrelated to your browser. This is killing one of two processes that are working together to do something. What really impresses me about this is that the developers kept the windows completely responsive while they are being minimized. I guess it is an unintended (but not bad) side affect of having videos still play while they are going to, or are already in the dock.
  • bugeyedmonster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's cute to see how many mac tricks we actual mac-heads consider to be "ancient" being discovered by all the windows weenie switchers.

    check out http://macosxhints.com for other things to impress your frie^H^H^H^H fellow weenies with.
  • airwalk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Very interesting feature of the OS. I've played around with this before at these places:

    Here's a page descibing the effect with video and sample code:
    http://www.atzenbeck.de/research/wildWindows/

    Here's a page on CocoaDev describing these "Wild Window" undocumented APIs in CoreGraphics:
    http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?WildWindows
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Yea, 'cause i'm sick of the dock getting cancelled all the time for no apparent reason!
  • VanillaBaron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1By "works on Linux with XGL/Compiz" do you mean:

    i) You can minimise windows to a dock or panel or bar, and the windows undergo an animation as they transition to and from the dock; and,
    ii) The windows remain responsive (update and accept clicks) during the transition animation; and,
    iii) If you killall gnome-panel during the transition, the window remains in a half-animated (distorted) state, yet remains responsive and can be interacted with?

    If so, then that is pretty cool! Does XGL/Compiz have cool animations (stretching and distorting the window) or only scaling ?
  • sinembarg0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1easily entertained much?
  • firsttube, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i would do a similar thing using the screensaver fenetres volantes. I would slow motion minimize a giant window, and in the middle of minimizing i would activate the screen saver. The half-minimized window would then float around the screen witht a bunch of normal windows. Very useful, I might add.
  • TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I doubt anyone will see this but I love how the shift key for macs on transition = "let me slow this down so you see it better windows guy!"

    This is on dock minimize, expose, and spaces. Use Shift ontop of a command and it slows it to 20%
  • M4cb0y, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Holy crap, try resizing!

    http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/8767/picture3mz5.png
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