Feature Request: Plank Profiles

Thoughts & Feedback
#1

Hi guys,

I don’t know if this is the right place for feature requests, but here goes…

In the same way that there is now an ability to save panel layouts, can there be the same for plank?

Saving the launchers kept in the dock, and its position, would be a fab tool to integrate into the MATE Tweak Tool.

Thoughts, criticisms, developments, agreements, etc. are all welcomed.

This isn’t something I’ve given a great deal of thought too, but I thought I should raise the topic nonetheless.

Regards,
Nathan Russell

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#2

You’re in the right place :smile: Here’s my thoughts:

Profiles… we could ask for them for pretty much customisable program that doesn’t have that functionality already built-in. If there’s one for Plank, others might demand it for the [alternate dock-like program] too. I’d say it would be better asking the Plank developers so everyone benefits, not just Ubuntu MATE - which focuses on being modern, but retro (ie. continuation of GNOME 2).

Configurations files await in the home directory, so “states” of the dock could be compressed and shared here on the forums – perhaps a new category would work for that. That may even be what MATE Tweak does right now with the predefined panels!

You could even write your own script if you wanted to “hot swap” config files in place too.

For such feature to be added to MATE Tweak, I’m not sure if Plank is a widely used so it’ll be a very low priority request. It might be more beneficial to have an extendible “profiles” feature in MATE Tweak to add any program and preserve/restore their configuration files as a “profile”.

So just like you’d want to switch Plank profiles, a “general profiles” feature might be better - Compiz could have predefined profiles – “Eye Candy” (ie. wobbly windows), “Normal” and “Lite”. Perhaps they could be shared on these forums, or as an additional program to easily upload/download them. But I mean this can also add your own set of programs and point to where their configs are stored.

#3

Perhaps there’s been some confusion.

The reason I ask, and I ask about Plank specifically, is because it is installed by default on Ubuntu MATE; it’s activated with the Cupertino panel profile within the MATE Tweak Tool.

That is, funnily enough, why I ask it be part of the current system; it seems you can specify if you want the plank to be activated or not within a profile, but this doesn’t extend to it’s position or the default launchers.

You’re right of course, I should probably dig more into how these profiles are currently working and how they’d be extended to what I have in mind…

There is, in my opinion, an inconsistency with the way things are at the moment; consistency is always good to strive for :wink:

#4

I agree with your points. Not sure if you are still involved in this forum, but the topic you started is very valuable. I would very much welcome an option to save plank profiles similar to panel profiles as part of MATE Tweak.

I agree with the fundamental idea of sharing and contributing back to other projects, and if any of these improvements can be made available for a wider user base beyond Ubuntu MATE, then this is certainly the most reasonable way to go. But in terms of consistency, I feel that it rather falls into the domain of MATE Tweak as @Nathan_Russell has suggested. The virtue of Plank is its simplicity (I have come to like it a lot) and it seems to me that the developers are less inclined to add more features to it.

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