14 DAY TRIAL // Recently I've been looking for some way to fit more things into my dock without having to actually make it bigger than it already is. I've never been a fan of those docks that stretch from one side of the screen to the other, and I intend to avoid them as much as possible. Because the things I wanted on my dock were task specific, what I wanted was some way of making several dock sets that would allow me to change the contents of the dock to something completely different when changing the task I was on without actually having to make the dock any bigger. Dock Deamon seems the optimal solution from its description so I took it for a spin.
What it does
Dock Deamon is a small program that enables you to bring more space in the dock by creating four pages of up to 18 icons each, which can be filled with whatever your heart desires. Or at least that's what I understood from the developer's description?
In reality it works a little different than one might expect. Those pages it mentions are like tabs in a separate window that can be invoked by clicking the Dock Deamon icon, and have nothing to do with the dock itself.
Working with it
Dock Deamon actually does nothing whatsoever to the dock. It acts like a 'drawer' application that lets you store items somewhere other than the dock.
When you start it, it will place it's icon in the dock and clicking on that icon will bring the Dock Deamon application to the front. This window itself is pretty self explanatory with a bunch of icons at the top that act as tabs, each one opening up its own separate content window that can store up to 18 items, in three rows of 6. While the icons at the top indicate a type of content, they can in fact contain anything whatsoever, so you can place applications in the documents tab and documents in the applications tab.
Getting things in of Dock Deamon is pretty simple, just drag them in. This is the one and only way to get content inside; unfortunately it is not very well implemented. You can drag onto the content of any of the tabs, but you cannot drag into the dock icon of the application, or into any of the tabs at the top of the Dock Deamon window. Also, the rather large size of the window that cannot be resized makes it annoying to drag things since the window must stay focused at all times. Once you have something inside, you can drag it to any of the free positions and even move an item to another tab via a contextual menu. This is also the way to remove items from the window.
Clicking on any of the items will launch them.
Dock space saving?
Although this application does not really do anything to the dock, it does in a way save space from it, the question is, are you comfortable with the way it does this? As a drawer application, it is not very good, with far better alternatives out there.
The biggest issue I have with it is how it is so huge. It takes up a good hunk of the screen, and this only to display 18 icons. A lot of the space it does take up is wasted, and there is no way to customize anything about it. The icons are too big, the window is too big, and to top it all off, clicking on the dock icon is the only way to invoke it.
And as for saving space in the dock, I don't use the dock as storage for files, and only use it for applications, so this does nothing for me, as all those applications I want will still get bunched up in the dock, so the space saved is minimal. The thing that really kills this application is the extraneous clicking. The dock is good because it's a one click and go thing, but with Dock Deamon you have to move to the dock, click the icon, then move to the top of the window, select the tab you want and then move to the application. That is simply too much movement for it to have any practical use to me. I can type the name of the application I want in LaunchBar or Quicksilver three times before I can actually get to it from Dock Deamon.
The Good
Lets you store things in its tabbed window so they don't have to sit in the dock.
The Bad
Cannot be customized in any way and as far as 'drawer' applications go, there are better alternatives.
The Truth
If you are looking for an application that will let you store things in it, there are better choices out there. If you actually want to get more functionality out of the dock, this application will not help you in any way.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
