The New DockFix

Introduction

DockFix exists for one reason. The Dock that comes with your Mac is not yours. Apple designed it to be fast and reliable, but you cannot change its colour, its icons, its animations, or much of what sits inside it. We built DockFix to hand all of that control back to you.

But what we gave you was never on par with the native dock. Users were quick to point out that it was slower, that it did not feel native, that it often looked worse, and that it was full of unexpected issues. In short, it was unstable and buggy. We would rather write that plainly than dress it up, because it is the reason for everything that follows.

So here is the announcement, before the explanation. Earlier this year we stopped shipping updates altogether and rewrote DockFix from the bottom. Not another update layered onto the version you have, but the same app rebuilt from nothing underneath it: a new engine, a new interface, and not one line of the old code left in place. It goes into public beta in a matter of days, and it is free if you already own DockFix.

Why We Started Again

To have a dock that is yours, you have had to accept one that is visibly not Apple’s. You minimise a window and the animation slides toward the wrong side of the screen. You open a menu and the scrollbar stutters. You launch an app and its icon arrives a moment after it should. You reach for a hidden dock and it thinks about it first. Windows resize in ways they should not. Every release we shipped tended to settle one of these and disturb another. If any of that sounds familiar, it is because every one of them is a real complaint we have had from customers over the past several months.

That is a trade nobody should be asked to make. A dock you have made your own is only worth having if it still feels like part of macOS, and ours stopped clearing that bar a long time ago. Customisation was never supposed to mean settling for something that looks and behaves worse than what you started with.

The reason it kept happening is that these were never separate faults. DockFix had been built on foundations laid for a far smaller app, and the parts that decide how it looks and how it moves were the ones sitting furthest from solid ground. No amount of repair was going to reach them, which is why we stopped trying to repair them.

Writing the app again took months, and the version you own stayed exactly as it was throughout them, which we are sorry for. It was the only way to give you every bit of the customisation you came here for without asking you to give up a proper Dock to get it.

What Is In It

Rebuilding from the bottom took longer, but it made possible a set of things the old foundations never could have supported.

• A dock that looks like Apple built it. The custom dock now animates and looks just like the system one out of the box. Same magnification effect, true liquid glass, minimise animations that travel toward the right edge of the screen. Icons that appear the moment an app opens, and more.
• Everything you need to customize. Colours, opacity, animations, custom app icons, folders, website shortcuts, presets, the file shelf. All of it is here, and there is more of it than before.
• Window previews. Hover an app to see its open windows, live, and go straight to the one you want. Our most requested feature.
• Widgets. Useful information and quick controls directly in the dock itself.
• A new interface. An all new user interface designed from the bottom up to be modern and intuitive.
• Performance. Ultra fast and light. Less than 1% CPU usage on average.

There is a good deal more besides, most of it drawn straight from what people have asked us for. We will show those in the Discord as they land rather than list them all here.

When It Arrives

The public beta begins in the next few days. The public release follows a few weeks after that, once the beta has told us what still needs work.

Beta invites go out on Discord first, so that is where to be if you want in early.

What It Costs

If you already own DockFix, the new version is free. No upgrade fee and no second licence. Your existing key carries straight over, with nothing to move or reactivate. You paid for a version that did not do what we said it would. Charging you again for the one that does would be hard to defend.

For anyone new, it is €14.99, paid once. No subscription.

Seeing It Early

We have opened a Discord server for the new DockFix. Beta invites go out there first, we post sneak peeks before they are announced anywhere else, and it is the easiest place to ask questions or request a feature while there is still time to build it.

Thank You

Patience is not something we are owed, and plenty of people have run out of it. To everyone who wrote in, reported something, or simply left the app installed while we worked on this out of sight: thank you. It made the decision to start again far easier to justify.

A better Dock than the one your Mac came with: every bit as snappy and as quick as Apple’s, customized however you want it, and carrying the features Apple never added. That is what DockFix has always been for, and this is the first version that delivers it. We would like you to be among the first to see it.