Mac OS X Style Dock in Macromedia Flash

Macromedia Flash 5

This page is no longer updated. Visit the new and improved ActionScript 2.0 Dock

Flash version of the original dock invented by Apple for its Mac OS X.
For a better experience swith to fullscreen mode.

Reflections from our kind Guests (in orange):

This might be a silly question, but how do you change the icons?

Open Window > Library and replace the icons with Import.

Would be cool to make an entire OSX simulation in flash.

Yeah :).

Wow i like this Dock!!!! Great Work. Perhaps you can built the animation jumping when clicking icon!! Its only a idea. Go on with this great work.

Stunning peice of work. Will no doubt be head scratching for some time. Superb!

Just wondering if you are planning on posting the .fla for the MX version of the dock? Great work! Scott: 2-21-05

OUTSTANDING! But the new Flash Dock tops it! Where can I find the fla file with the code? Best regards, Tom from Germany

Now available: ActionScript 2.0 Dock

Excelent work... I'm looking for something kind of like this to use as a menu commercial product (a web-based app). Well you have a specific license for it? any news on when you will have the MX version customizable by parameters?

The new version is customizable (see above). It is freeware. Use it as you wish. Backlinks are appreciated though.

It looks great, but I can't help but wonder why it would be so hard to code in the flexibility to make the magnification more customizable. If one were to set min to 16 and max to 92, the icons crowd each other. =\

It was no simple task to find an flexible algorithm. See the MX2004 version for better control.

I was just wondering. Do the dock icons have to be the same size for the dock to work sucessfully? Could you have different size icons and still have the dock work smoothly?

Not with this version. See the new one.

I commend you. This is probably one of the best pieces of work I have seen in terms of the logic that you used in creating this piece. When I first saw this, I thought to myself that it was an amateur using motion-tweens and long timelines trying to rip off a company’s GUI interface. When I found otherwise I had to compliment a work well done. Not to sound too NERDY, but this is awesome.

How did you have the Dock resize when going to fullscreen? I can't seem to figure that out in Flash.

How can you make the dock scale to different monitor resolutions? I've placed a modified dock into HTML via DreamWeaver but it is the same size on every monitor so it doesn't look right. How did you do your fullscreen version?

Actually the browser does that when you load an SWF directly without embeding it in HTML. Just get rid of the fscommand("allowscale", false); on the first frame and it will scale in HTML.

Have you done any work with making it more dynamic? Like being able to add and remove icons on the fly? This is functionality I need and i am going to look into adding this. I would be more then happy to share the new fla. I would like to break it all into classes.

The dock development has halted due to lack of time. I think all of us would appreciate it if you shared your work. Thanks for the offer.

This is quite excellent. Well done. I'm trying to get some itneraction for the buttons, a jumping of some sort to mimic the original OSX menu and a way to make the buttons clickable. I'm finding that, for some reaosn, I can't seem to target the buttons. Do you have any input on this?

You can use mouse events on movieclips in Flash MX. Flash 5 does not support that, you have to nest buttons in movieclips. To create drag-and-drop and jumping effects I would separate the icons from the underlying buttons. An invisible button would be connected to each icon and would set a jumpin' state when clicked. When the target clip is loaded it would set it off. This way you could even have multiple jumping icons as multiple clips load different content.

amazing, how do I load a dynamic images to the dock? I will use .asp file to send the file_name as variable, but how do I create a MC that will support this? where should I put it?

This will work Flash MX and up. You can load JPEGs from the server with loadMovie(). You will not get nice alpha blending as with PNG. If you want good result, create a shared library with 32bit PNG icons an load them at runtime. (Actually shared libraries work even with Flash 5, I believe.) You would load each images into an individual movieclip.

awesome

Wow.... This is so f***in awesome! Really, Really nice job there man! Any updates on when the new customizable version will come out? Can't wait for more! Again... Nice work!

Well the release of the new dock really depends on my workload. I cannot make promises at the moment. By the way if you guys and gals put this Flash Dock into action why not show it to others? If you send me a link to your dock I will surely post it here.

merci beaucoup.

a fantastic piece of work. i salute you sir!

My hat is well and truly off to you for this. It's so smooth.

I've been trying for months to program something like the mac dashboard. This is seriously the most perfect emulation of it, period. Great work.

How do I get the new icons that i've put in to have a transparent background with the shadow like your icons do? Nice job!

Use 32bit PNG icons with alpha transparency.

you've just saved my life and job thanks

THANK you! spectacular, at last I've found an editable .fla dock !!!

HAHAHA , nice job , well i've worked this thing a bit to make it work like a real OS and it works , i used Fscommands on the Mclips linked to JAvascript Active X source code in the HTML witch opens the apps, so from now on my PC is A MAC HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

A new version of the Flash Dock is underway. It will have easy customization, verbosely commented code and object-oriented code style. The new version will be coded in Flash MX (version 6).

That is really, really good. I tried to assign actions to the individual icons. I managed to get them to link to an html page, but I couldn't get them to link to different frames in a flash movie. Good job. Very cool!

I would create a clip on the main timeline called main_clip and control it with a mouse event on each icon. Like
on(release) {
_root.main_clip.gotoAndStop(5)
}
This would make the main_clip to position itself to Fame 5.

mmmhh...Where´s the code in the FLA? Can´t seem to find it.

The code is attached to the dock MovieClip. Click the dock and open up the ActionScript Editor.

Hello This is very neat Well done Temi

How can i adjust the magnification value? Thanks for this example it is truley amazing!

At this point almost everything is hardcoded. It is a real pain to change magnification. I'm planning to release a new version with easy customization.

Very awsome... It looks and almost acts exactly like my OS X dock... But do you know of how one could make it interactive as well.?. Like to assign a button command to any one of the icon...

In Flash 5 you can add transparent buttons with on(release) event. Flash MX and up you can create button events for regular movieclips like
some_mc.onRelease = function() { doSomething; }

Pretty nice, a good implementation

its the best i've sseen yet

hallo! its very handy menu, its simply make this vertical?

This version does not support rotation. Try the new one.