Membranophonist’s Ramblings

I like the simplicity of Overflow, which I learned of from Gus Mueller.

• Rather than starting completely empty, guaranteeing that the user will have to add items, why not pre-populate a category with their default browser, e-mail client, and 5 recent applications? Let users dive right into the application instead of forcing them to first configure it.
• Double-clicking an empty square when in Edit mode = open Add dialog.
• Double-clicking an empty category row = new category.
• The item removal zone should be outside the Overflow window, not between the squares, which makes it all too easy to accidentally remove an item while attempting to reposition it.
• Directly related to the preceding comment, Undo support for item removal while in the Edit mode would be nice. It is probably safe to clear the Undo stack after the user leaves Edit mode.
• Given that the stated purpose of the application is to reduce Dock clutter and that it can be activated with a hotkey, it would make sense to provide a setting to run Overflow without a Dock icon, instead running in the menu bar. This would obviously eliminate the ability to drop items on the Dock icon to add them.
• If a category is empty, it would be safe to skip the removal confirmation dialog.
• “Add Item…” (needs ellipses as further user action is required to complete the command). Pluralizing (Add Items…) would hint that users can select multiple items at once.
• Having the Dock icon reflect the actual frontmost category’s contents would be a nice touch, though not necessary by any means.