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Fixing What Is Broken In Mac Leopard’s Dock.
Like the Dock or hate the Dock, most of us would agree that the Dock has some good characteristics, but Apple hasn’t listened to our collective suggestions. I figured out how to make the Dock even better. The chrome ledge? Puhleeze. Let’s not go there. It’s colorful in a gaudy 3-dimension sort of way and probably attractive to Mac newbies, but, really Apple… OK. I won’t go there. Already utilities are popping up to help fix what Apple broke with the new Dock. One thing they didn’t break was the document section to the right of the Dock, between the applications icons and the trash can. Apple should have focused more attention on what you can do there, but it’s a start. Let good old Alex finish it up so it at least works well enough to use. The documents section of the Dock lets you drag folders from the Finder to the Dock. Click on a folder and hold, and you get a dialog box with various settings, including the new Stacks feature, which fans out the contents of the folder in the Dock.
Another setting, and my favorite, is Grid. Again, click the folder and hold, and the folder’s contents fan out in a grid so you can see all the colorful and juicy icons inside. That is very handy, attractive, and simple to use-- but it looks more than ugly, it’s actually fugly. Why? Let’s say you drag to the documents section of the Dock your Documents folder or Utilities folder or both or whatever other folder you deem important. What happens to the folder? If it’s empty, you can’t tell one folder from another. If it’s loaded with files, you see a stack of files as the icon, but still can’t tell which folder you’re dealing with. Yes, just run your Mac’s mouse pointer across the folder and a little sign pops up above to tell you want folder the mouse is pointing to, but that’s another couple of extra steps because the folders are devoid of visual cues to tell you what the folder is and what might be inside. Leave it to Alex to figure out a classy way to make the Dock’s documents section even handier and holier than what Apple gave us in Leopard. Notice the image below. While you may not like Apple’s folder icons, with a little practice you can begin to tell which is which. The “A” icon folder is for Applications, the desktop image icon is for the Desktop. The document icon folder is for, duh, Documents. And so on. Can you guess the other two in the image below? If you guessed Downloads and Utilities, then you guessed right. See? It works. Also, notice the little black arrow in the bottom left corner of each folder. Each folder is really an alias to the real folder. Here’s what I did to get it that way. This works with any folder you want to place in the documents section of the Dock. Let me use the Documents folder as the first example.
Step #1
Step #2
Step #3
Bingo. Instant browser or launcher in the Dock that looks professional, maintains itself even as you add more files into whatever folders you place in the Dock, and provides necessary visual cues so you know which folder to click to get whatever is inside. Of course, there are other options and other ways to do nearly the same thing in the Dock, but this one works well, is simple to set up and stays that way. As always, your mileage may vary. Update - A Mac360 reader sent us a link to an Automator action which accomplishes the same objective, without using an alias. It’s a bit more complicated to set up, but once the action is properly installed, it works quickly and efficiently. Click Here to download the Automator action. And - Another Mac360 reader pointed us to a new Mac-oriented web site called “Leopard Docks” which has plenty of Dock styles and utilities available. Click Here for Leopard Docks. Love the Dock? Or hate the Dock? What do you use instead of the Dock? Talk Back to Mac360 in the Comments section below.
Off Topic Note: Have you ever noticed how much Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” television commercials remind you of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote? Seriously. • Article by Alexis Kayhill • Published on Tuesday, November 6, 2007
• Category: Tips & Tricks • 9 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now
« Previously A Few Features Apple Did Not Put In OS X Leopard.
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Talk Back to the folks at Mac360 trACE says:
Apple changed the stacks setup and gave more options with 10.5.3. As long as you’re doing your system upgrades Adi’s simple solution will work from here on out. — Posted on Mon Jul 28 at 11:09 am by trACE
Adi says:
I think you are all barking up the wrong tree. These fixes work but are very complicated. There is a much easier solution to all of this.
1. Assign an icon to the folder that you are using as a stack
Thus there is no need to create other files, or run automator scripts. Leave it to Apple to have left a door open, we just have to find the door! — Posted on Thu Jul 24 at 3:36 am by Adi
DB says:
They definitely do behave as Classic Applications, which for some reason prevents me from viewing them as icons once in the stack (I get a prohibited app icon that I cannot change) I’m not sure why this is, as Leopard insists on displaying the prohibited app icon in the dock, the actual drawer icon in coverflow, and the default blue folder apps icon in the “show info” window. I haven’t a clue what to do! I’ve been able to change the other icons by converting png files to icns files (to get rid of the white “frame” behind the drawer) but the empty apps of course won’t do that. Anyone have any ideas? — Posted on Sat Feb 02 at 4:53 am by DB
iggy pence says:
What do you mean by ‘Classic applications?’ Apps developed in Cocoa are not ‘Classic.’ Apps in Carbon can run on PPC/Intel and a few, like AppleWorks, can run on Classic and OS X. — Posted on Tue Jan 22 at 11:31 am by iggy pence
vanfruniken says:
<b>
BTW is there any information on the web explaining why these folders behave as Classic applications?
— Posted on Tue Jan 22 at 8:24 am by vanfruniken
Neil Anderson says:
If you don’t like something in Leopard, or any Apple software or hardware product, send feedback to Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ — Posted on Sat Nov 24 at 7:59 am by Neil Anderson
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