Modes, and the two things a mode is made of.
Two ways to get it
Installer: Aero.Dock_1.2.0_x64-setup.exe. Per user, no admin rights.
Portable: Aero.Dock_1.2.0_x64-portable.zip. Unpack it anywhere and run Aero Dock.exe. Nothing to install.
Windows will show a SmartScreen box either way, because the build is not code signed. Click More info, then Run anyway.
Per-app audio
Scroll an app on the dock to change that app's volume. Middle-click to mute or unmute it. Right-click to pick which output it uses.
A readout appears while you scroll, and a muted app keeps a badge so silence never looks like a broken app. This is the same knob the Windows volume mixer shows, so the two always agree. An app holding several audio sessions, which is normal for browsers and games, is treated as one.
Workspace snapshots
Save which apps are open, where their windows sit, how big they are and which monitor they are on, then put it all back.
Windows that are still open get moved rather than relaunched. Apps that have closed get opened once. Anything saved on a monitor that is no longer plugged in comes back onto a screen that exists, instead of off the edge of the desktop.
Dock Modes
A mode holds its own pinned apps, its own workspace and its own per-app volumes. Switching restores all three from the tile on the dock. Give each mode an icon from the preset grid, or any character you like.
Modes can also switch on their own: name the apps that belong to a mode, and bringing one of them to the front loads it. Automatic switching changes pins and volumes only, never window positions, so it cannot fight the app you just clicked on.
Modes are off until you turn them on, and turning them on makes your current dock the first mode, so nothing is lost.
Two glass materials
Classic is the glossy, beveled Aero panel the app has always used. Liquid keeps the same palette but renders as thin glass: most of the tint leaves the body, the light moves to the rim, the corners deepen and the hard gloss cap goes away.
The dock and the settings window pick their material separately, so either can be glossy while the other is a lens. Both start on Classic, so upgrading changes nothing on screen. Settings, then Theme.
Two honest notes on that material. Real refraction needs an SVG displacement map used as a backdrop filter, which rebuilds every time the element changes size, and the dock changes size on every magnification frame, so the lensing is done with static edge optics instead. And the dock is a transparent window, where a backdrop filter has no desktop pixels to sample, so Liquid there carries its tint in the body rather than in a blur that never happens.
Also
A machine with no audio device no longer reports an error from the audio calls. No endpoint means nothing has a volume, which an empty list already says. It shows up on a PC with no sound card, and on a desktop with the speakers unplugged.
Upgrading from 1.1.0
Install over the top. Settings, pins and everything else carry across untouched. The settings file gains a modes section and two material fields, all dormant, so the dock behaves exactly as it did until you turn something on.
Full changelog: v1.1.0...v1.2.0