Getting There Faster with Docky
Docky is a replacement for the old bottom panel meant for faster launching and switching of applications. After you have Docky installed, you need to start it.
If you run your mouse over the dock, icons will grow and shrink as you do so, exactly as the OS X dock does. This makes it easier to click on the correct icon. Depending on whether or not the program is already running, you will see two different things. If it is not yet running, the icon will bounce to show you it is starting before the application itself starts. However, if it is already running, you will zoom to that window.
On the far left of the dock is a brown icon with an anchor on it. This launches the preferences window for Docky. This is where you can choose whether or not to launch Docky at startup, various options for how it appears, and Docklets and Helpers.
Docklets are icons that appear on the dock even though they are not applications. These include a trash icon, a clock, and more (Figure 6-26).
Figure 6-26 Docklets
Helpers are small scripts that can add items to the right-click menu of an icon, such as controlling the playback of music in Banshee. With the helper enabled, you can start, stop, go back, and go forward without opening Banshee at all (Figure 6-27).
Figure 6-27 The Banshee helper menu
New helpers are easy to install, either on a per-user or computerwide basis. To learn more, see http://wiki.go-docky.com/index.php?title=List_of_helpers.
Further Resources
The Docky Web site at www.go-docky.com is always a good place to start, and it includes a help wiki if you need a bit more help.