I use a auto-hidden dock which has nothing in it. It is populated by running programs and is not used as a launcher.

For launching I use a tool like Quicksilver or Alfred of Spotlight.

This way I get more screen realestate, I see no point staring at a dock icons all the time.

My dock resembles Command-Tab.

Same; though upon browsing the support page for uBar, I stumbled on this:

    defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 1000 && killall Dock

Make sure to use a lowercase 'd' in 'dock' in the identifier– it matters on Mavericks.

Thanks ics I updated the support page.

A taskbar like Windows is useful to know what are your alt-tab targets, of if you need to open a new app. But good idea, I'm going to try the empty dock.

I use the empty dock too - well, nearly. I have emacs, terminal and browser on there permanently, for quick access to my 3 most-used programs. For quick access to everything else, I've got a shortcut to the Applications folder too. (Sort by Name, Display as Stack, View Content as Automatic.) To reduce clutter, you could alternatively make yourself a ~Applications folder with a reduced set of shortcuts in it, and add a shortcut to that instead.

I'm certain OS X was set up this way when I first got my computer, but I've used some people's Macs and they don't have it. So... maybe it wasn't? But anyway, default or not, it works well.

I'm the same way. The dock is just a quick place to look for things that I might have left open. Or opening recently downloaded items.

Thanks for linking to this, I just picked up a copy. I switched to a MBP retina two months ago, and have made an effort to keep it fairly vanilla and figure out how to do things in OS X... without diving into OSXvsWIN, let's just say I'm super glad to have found this add on. It'd be even better if it updated to mimic Windows 8's taskbar (popup previews of windows, mostly), but I'll take what I can get for now. Easily worth the $20 it normally sells for to me, but I could only pay the $10 sale price. Sold!

On one hand, I feel so much more aware of what's currently running on my computer, but on the other hand, I feel a bit like the kid I mocked in the 2000s who would move his Windows task bar to the top of his screen because he missed using his Mac.

You might also be interested in Witch [0] which lets you switch between windows of different apps as opposed to only switching between single apps or between windows of a single app.

[0]http://manytricks.com/witch/

I love Witch, but after upgrading to Mavericks I found that it was weirdly sluggish and tended to overshoot what I was aiming at. It also doesn't function with a lot of fullscreen apps (primarily games) and iBooks does ridiculous stuff with its windows that no app switcher seems to know how to work around. All that said, I'm still glad I bought it and I end up switching back and forth to the default app switcher because it's so much better in every way but those bugs. I'm sure the iBooks thing will get resolved and I think the sluggishness thing is eventually going to get cleared up in patch.

For what it's worth, I haven't had that slowdown experience neither on Mavericks nor on Yosemite. Given I for example don't use full screen at all.

Hey leviathant, window previews are being worked on - expect them in an update to uBar:)

And don't feel bad - if NeXT had had a taskbar, we would all have been using a taskbar for the last 14 years!

Years ago I thought DragThing (http://www.dragthing.com/) was the coolest thing around. I went around making all sorts of clicky things to litter my desktop with. It's apparently still developed though I don't think I've seen any screenshots of it from this decade, so it might be wishful thinking that it would've kept up with OS X UI styling. uBar looks interesting though and it's nice to see people working on this kind of tool.

I think the developer spends more time working on PCalc, and even then, I think the iOS version gets the most attention.

I last used DragThing back in the OS 9 days. With the OS X dock, it didn't seem as necessary. Couple that with LaunchBar (or Alfred/Quicksilver) and I have basically my launch needs met.

Assuming you have uBar installed, is there anything about it that makes it feel like an add-on? Or does it feel like it's really a part of the desktop environment? (I'm not talking about design aesthetic or anything like that, just wondering if it gets wonky sometimes)

That's what I want to know too.

Hi there, I'm the developer of uBar:) uBar is made to totally feel like part of the system. Please feel free to check out the 4 week trial, and take advantage of the The Talk Show coupon! And if you have any suggestions or feedback, you can send them via Twitter or email using the Send Feedback item in the uBar menu. Just see the release notes to see how much user feedback gets incorporated into updates:) Regards, Edward

Well, you get a 4 week trial, so that should give you a good idea of it.