Floating dock doesn't stay in same place

from Stardock Forums
I recently downloaded and setup ObjectDock and I love it... but I have a problem that hopefully someone will be able to help me with.

I have two monitors set up. My primary monitor has a resolution of 1680x1050 and my secondary is 1280x1024. I have one Macintosh-like dock and a tabbed drawer dock set up on my secondary monitor. When I launch a full screen game, it appears that my docks are repositioned as if my secondary monitor had a vertical resolution of 1050. When I exit the game and the secondary monitor goes back to 1280x1024, the tabbed drawer repositions itself and all is well... but the Macintosh-like dock doesn't and ends up thinking that it's still in 1050 which makes half of it off the screen.

To fix this, I have to move the dock's position (top, left, right or to monitor 1) then move it back.

I have the Macintosh-like doc set for the bottom edge of the screen, I have "automatic distance from edge" checked and I have the "keep on top" bullet selected. I've tried quite a few different combinations to try and keep it from happening, but I've been unsuccessful so far.

I was going to purchase this product so that when the Vista 64 issues were worked out, I would be able to get the start menu and systray going... but I play a lot of games and I can't see myself resetting the bar every time I close a game.

If you have a solution, please help.

(hopefully I explained my issue well enough... let me know if there's any confusion)
objectdock
3,257 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
So... I take it no one knows what's going on and what I can do to fix it? I've resorted to just using the drawer dock... which is close to defeating the whole reason I installed the software to begin with.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have the same problem with the autohiding tabbed dock forgetting its position in a two monitor setup. Sometimes it happens if I shutdown/restart/logoff normally, but it happens the most if I quit objectdock before shutdown/restart/logoff. None of my four other zoomer docks get lost.

Note that this has occurred under vista and XP (same machine), CRT or LCD, under all versions for the past year or so. In my case, the tabbed dock is autohiding on the bottom of the left monitor (which is primary) and the four zooming docks are on the right monitor.

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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am having the same problem - dual monitor, with the dock on the bottom of the 2nd monitor running at higher resolution (1280x1024 vs 1024x768). Every time my screensaver runs the dock is repositioned part way up the screen (probably at 768). Very annoying and pretty much renders the dock useless if I have to re-set the position constantly.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
any kind of answer would do...such as:

yes it is a known issue;
oh we didn't know, thanks for reporting it;
we are trying to fix it;
we won't be fixing that;
it will only be fixed in the paid version;
it's a feature, not a bug;

anything?
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
yes it's a known issue and I would consider it a feature.

It only happens with a "change" of resolution. The dock WILL NOT accept a position off-screen and so resets itself to a position on-screen when you change resolution which is what the games/screensavers are doing.

I would suggest running games and screensavers at the same resolution as your "highest" monitor setting. If that doesn't work you'll need to place the dock in a position so that it's visible when your monitors are both running at the game/screensaver resolution.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Lantec,

Then why does it forget its position during logoff/shutdown/restart as well? There appears to be no resolution change going on during that time frame, at least not until LONG after the application has been shut down.

Also, if the application is smart enough to change position when the screen res drops, why isn't it smart enough to change position back when the screen returns to full size, or goes larger?

I mean, honestly, all it would need to do is store/calculate it's "position" by % of screen width/height during these transitions, right?

Just askin'

:}
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Then why does it forget its position during logoff/shutdown/restart as well?


I've never had that happen. It might be an issue with the free version which I haven't used in a couple years. However, logon screens ARE normally a different resolution then desktop screens but I wouldn't expect that to matter to OD which isn't loaded at that time.. Jeff would be the one to answer your other questions but I would ask how the computer would know that the res change is temporary versus permanent since the change to/from is handled by the app that did it and not the OS?


I mean, honestly, all it would need to do is store/calculate it's "position" by % of screen width/height during these transitions, right?


Sounds like a reasonable approach but I'm not aware of any other program that handles it's screen position in that fashion.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just FYI, while the poster may be talking about the freeware version, my problems have existed with Object Dock Pro for (at least) two years. So it's a long-standing behavior/bug.

In my case, another fun bug is that a tabbed dock will sometimes appear in the right place (i.e. centered) on monitor 2 instead of monitor 1 (where I set it). This happens only after logoff/restart/shutdown. It has seemed random, but it might be tied into whether the user exits objectdock before logging off/etc. or let's the OS close objectdock automatically. As best as I can tell, it seems to fail more often if I let the OS close objectdock.

This particular problem may be related to the fact that there is no explicit way to save your settings. It kind of just does it on its own. So it may be saving "poorly" during a shutdown.

Since the program is clearly multi-monitor aware (you can choose which monitor a zoomed dock is located on, etc., and it never loses zoomed dock settings), perhaps the simplest programming answer is to slightly rework the tabbed dock position to use the zoom docked algorithm/code. I mean half the program gets it right, but the other half doesn't.

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