numbers on dock icons -what for?

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A trivial point, but, I've been using a Mac for a while now, but try as I might, I have never been able to fathom what those numbers are that come and go in my Mail and Shiira dock icons. They don't seem to relate to anything.
Anybody know?
 
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The red circle with numbers in mail dock icon refers to the number of new messages in the inbox. They disappear once you've read the message.

I don't use Shiira so can't help with that one.
 
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Welcome to Mac-Forums, Desdemonica!

That is true. Shiira may either be pointing to an amount of finished downloads or pop-ups blocked. Consult Shiira Help for more details :)
 
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I have numbers on Mail for unread emails. Vienna for unread articles. Transmission for upload/download speeds and number of finished downloads. Toast also badges the dock icon with a progress bar.

It depends on the app, but it's generally just so you can tell at a glance what the app's doing, no matter what else you're doing.
 
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I'd guess that Shiira is displaying the number of unread new posts in your RSS feeds.
 
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MacHeadCase

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The red circle with numbers in mail dock icon refers to the number of new messages in the inbox. They disappear once you've read the message.

I don't use Shiira so can't help with that one.

Welcome to Mac-Forums, Desdemonica! Enjoy your stay and make yourself comfy! Looking forward to your contribution! Right you are about the Mail.app thingy!
 
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Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm a not so recent switcher myself and have been lurking about for a while now and finally took the plunge to join in and post :)
 
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MacHeadCase

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<Off Topic>

As you probably know, the Anything Goes forum is to get to know other Mac-Forums members better, the other forums are self-explinatory so go ahead and take a stroll, the place is yours too! :)

</Off Topic>
 
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Thanks. I guess you are right about the Mail, though somehow i never noticed the correlation before. But the Shiira thing; I don't use RSS feeds at all. Shiira will suddenly pop up with some high number like 48, and various numbers come and go.
I had 4 browsers I was using (before I recently re-loaded the OS, formatting the old stuff) and Shiira was mostly devoted to viewing web pages on my own HD that I work on, that belong to my website.
 
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If you add an RSS feed to your bookmarks folder, Shiira monitors it regularly. Updated RSS feeds appear in the RSS sidebar. Titles in bold style means that the articles are unread.

Also you can check the number of unread articles on the Dock icon, and bookmarks bar and menu. In addition, Shiira supports Growl notification for incoming articles.

They're probably rss bookmarks that are included by default.
 
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and if you still have those numbers up there after you 'closed' mail you need to remember that closing the window does not quit the application...you need to apple+q or go to mail drop down and then select quit
-chris
 

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