Cairo Dock (also known as GLX Dock) is a launcher / task manager like Avant Window Navigator or Docky and its major advantage is the huge list of applets it comes with: menus (MintMenu, Cardapio, etc.), Drop to Share applet, Ubuntu Me Menu and Messaging Menu applets, keyboard indicator, netspeed, network monitor, notification area, power manager, stacks, terminal, weather, weblets, system monitor and many many more. Also, unlike other docks, Cairo Dock also comes with stand-alone applets meaning the applets don’t have to be attached to the dock and you can use them like Screenlets / Desklets.
A new stable Cairo Dock version – 2.3.0 -, has been released today, bringing a lot of new applets, improvements for some already existing applets and better Compiz and Kwin integration.
Note: if you’ve been using Cairo Dock from the unstable PPA, you already know most of these features (we’ve actually posted about some of them already).
Here’s what’s new in Cairo Dock 2.3.0:
- A new “Recent Events” applet lets you easily browse recent files such as documents, audio and video files, websites and so on thanks to Zeitgeist. The new applet also has a search and looks a lot like Sezen. Click for a screenshot.
- New applets: Transmission, Deluge, MintMenu, Translator, Quote of the day, etc. You can install those from the GLX Dock Applets repository – to install an applet, drag and drop the applet link from the browser to Cairo Dock.
- System-Monitor applet can now monitor CPU temperature and fan speed
- The Logout applet now warns you when the computer needs to be restarted.
- The Drop and Share applet now handles UbuntuOne (also works with Dropbox)
- Better integration with Compiz and Kwin.
- The Stack applet now displays the web page’s favicon.
- more
For more info see the official announcement @ GLX Dock forums.
Install Cairo Dock stable in Ubuntu
Cairo Dock 2.3.0 stable is already available in the main Cairo Dock PPA. Add the stable PPA and install Cairo Dock in Ubuntu 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04 using the commands below:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cairo-dock-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cairo-dock