From Eeebuntuwiki

Making a GNOME panel into a DOCK

So you want a dock with no overheads???

We can turn a simple GNOME panel into a very functional dock! Just follow the simple steps below.

Adding a New panel

First we simply add a new panel so right click on the top panel and click add. A new panel should appear at the bottom (if one isnt there already!)

Change the Panel preferences

So now we need to change the ordinary looking panel into a 'dock'. Right click and select Properties.

In here we want to

1. Change the size to around 40(or whatever size you want your dock) 2. Untick expand 3. Tick Autohide 4. Untick Show hide buttons

Now Select Background at the top and select solid colour. We want it 100% transparrent so right at the left of the slider. Done? Hit Close.

Gconf-editor settings

Now we have something which looks like a dock but its not perfect. To get it to show/hide quicker AND be totally out of view when in another window we need to use gconf-editor.

Hit Alt + F2 and type gconf-editor

It will open up another screen. In here we need to navigate to

Apps > Panel > Top Levels > panel_0 (depends of other panel's ref) .

Faster Hide/show....

So Now we just adjust afew settings on the right side. Change the settings as follows:

Auto_hide_size : 1 hide_delay : 50 unhide_delay : 50

Adding the icons

Just close the gconf-edit screen and you will see we have a good nifty and fast dock. All you need to do now is Drag the Icons you want showing on the dock from your menu. Just drag the icon onto the white bars on the left/right hand side for the icons to be added. To rearrange the icons simply right click on them and select 'move'.