Magic Formation is a flexible circular (or not) dock for Windows

TokyoDownstairs' Magic Formation is a flexible, highly customizable dock for Windows.

If you're not into circular docks, fear not! Magic Formation can also display your dock icons in a straight line or in a completely manual layout of your choosing. As with any good dock app, icons for your programs can be selected from exe, ico, and png files (like the transparent Paper Mario guys I'm using).

To make your dock appear, just move your mouse in a circular motion. Actions are supported for both clockwise and counter-clockwise movements and you can change where your dock appears by clicking the center icon and dragging it to your preferred location. Magic Formation also supports hot keys, skinning, and a bevy of other options.

With the sensitivity turned down and more than half way, I had a very hard time getting my dock to appear - likely the result of using a crummy, 5-year-old optical mouse. The program itself worked flawlessly and was fairly light on resources (less than 15mb of memory in manual formation).

Magic Formation is a free download for Windows, and there's nothing to install - just unzip the files and launch the executable.

For a little more visual sizzle, you might want to check out Circle Dock, with its cool-yet-dizzying spiral effect.

[ via Shell Extension City ]

Tags: circle-dock, dock, freeware, launcher