DockView 2.1.9 and 2.2.0 both went out this week. The preview panel now appears the way you pick, instead of the one way it always did. Windows living on other desktops show up in the panel, where they were missing before. And the app you are working in gets a window list of its own on a single shortcut.
Seven ways for the panel to appear
The panel used to fade in, and your only choice was whether it faded at all. Preview → Panel animation is a list of seven now.
- Spring grows the panel out of the Dock icon and lets it bounce at the end.
- Smooth makes the same move without the bounce.
- Slide brings it out from under the Dock.
- Pop snaps it into place where it stands.
- Fade changes opacity only, the way it always worked.
- Classic adds a moving frame to the fade, the way HyperDock did it.
- Off skips the animation.
Next to the list sits a Speed slider, 0.5× to 2×, because what feels lively on one Mac feels twitchy on another. Reduce motion in Accessibility still overrides whatever you pick. Your old setting carries over: off becomes Off, on becomes Spring.
Windows from your other desktops
macOS spreads windows across desktops and then leaves you to remember which one you left things on. The panel now shows all of them: the current desktop first, then the rest, each one marked Desktop 2, Desktop 3 or Full Screen. The numbers are the ones Mission Control uses. If you would rather not see them, turn off Preview → Mark windows on other desktops.
The windows of the app you are in
⌘⇥ walks between apps. Hold ⌥ and press the key above Tab and you get the windows of the app you are in right now, as a compact list. There are no thumbnails in it, so it opens immediately. Press the shortcut again to step down the list, let go of ⌥ to switch.
It stays off until you turn it on, like every shortcut DockView adds: Windows → Application Windows.
The window switcher behaves like ⌘⇥
Letting go of the modifier now switches you to the highlighted window, with no second keystroke to confirm. If you would rather confirm with a second keystroke, turn Switch when the modifier is released off.
Minimized and hidden windows are no longer in the list, the way ⌘⇥ leaves them out of its own. Show hidden and minimized windows brings them back.
There is also a third view, List: every window in the system as plain text, with no thumbnails to wait for. The view button inside the overlay cycles grid, carousel and list, and the text comes in three sizes, Normal, Large and Larger.
Smaller things
Preview cards were redrawn, with a new backing, a clearer outline under the pointer and tidier labels. The Width and Height sliders became one Thumbnail size slider: you set the height and the width follows the proportions of the window. The panel also stopped running off the edge of the screen.
Dock icon numbers can stay on screen all the time now, not only while you hold a modifier, and the badge can be black. Stage Manager moved into a Stage tab of its own, and the Settings window got wide enough to fit every tab in the toolbar.
Fixed
DockView asked for Screen Recording permission again after you had already granted it, and kept a check running in the background that cost CPU. Both are gone. The Stage Manager group panel used to stay on screen after you switched Stage Manager off in System Settings; it closes now.
Where to read the details
Every setting named here is written up in the DockView documentation. It is a single page, so ⌘F works.
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