Docking is the placement and alignment of one element against another so the pair holds a stable relationship. In XOM's shipped product this describes how interface panels are arranged and layered. Placement of virtual objects into a physical scene is a separate capability, and it is not present in the reviewed codebase.
01Panel docking in the layout systems
XOM runs three parallel layout systems, each a different arrangement of the same underlying surfaces: Demo, Hybrid and Switch. The Demo layout is the primary one and is built as a reversed flex row with four docked regions:
| Region | Position | Contents | |---|---|---| | Algorithm menu | Left sidebar | Feed algorithm selection | | Web wrapper | Centre, flexible | Content viewer and container host | | Social wrapper | Right, fixed width | The social feed | | Admin wrapper | Right, fixed, overlay | Administrative control panel |
The admin panel is worth noting specifically: it is a slide-out overlay rendered inside the layout rather than a separate page route, which is why it docks over the existing arrangement instead of replacing it.
02Layering
Because several of these surfaces can be open at once, XOM defines an explicit stacking order rather than leaving it to declaration order:
- Onboarding overlay sits highest
- Profile and broadcast panels next
- Modals below those
- Menus below modals
- Sidebar and admin panel at the base of the overlay range
One consequence for anyone extending the interface: CSS module class names are hashed at build time, so stable targeting of a docked region — for onboarding spotlights, for example — uses data-* attributes rather than class selectors.
03Workspace arrangement in the specification
XOM's subsystem specification treats layout as a configurable surface. The Create Console defines a "configure workspace layout" step handled by an interface customiser, and the Settings Manager defines display preferences handled by a visual configuration manager, with an export and import path for carrying a configuration between environments.
04If the intent is spatial docking
Aligning a virtual object to a physical surface would require a tracking source, a stored pose, and a runtime capable of holding both. XOM is a web application built as a static export served over Firebase Hosting, with no AR session layer in the code reviewed. Those requirements would need to be defined before this page could describe spatial docking honestly.