Setting Up the Dock phần 1

4.2. Setting Up the Dock Apple starts the Dock off with a few icons it thinks youll enjoy: Dashboard, QuickTime Player, iTunes, iChat, Mail, the Safari Web browser, and so on.
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Setting Up the Dock phần 14.2. Setting Up the DockApple starts the Dock off with a few icons it thinks youll enjoy: Dashboard, QuickTimePlayer, iTunes, iChat, Mail, the Safari Web browser, and so on. But using your Macwithout putting your own favorite icons in the Dock is like buying an expensive suit andturning down the free alteration service. At the first opportunity, you should make theDock your own.The concept of the Dock is simple: Any icon you drag onto it (Figure 4-1) is installedthere as a button. (You can even drag an open window onto the Dock—a Microsoft Worddocument youre editing, say—using its proxy icon [Section 1.2.4] as a handle.)A single click, not a double-click, opens the corresponding icon. In other words, the Dockis an ideal parking lot for the icons of disks, folders, documents, programs, and Internetbookmarks that you access frequently.Tip: You can install batches of icons onto the Dock all at once—just drag them as agroup. Thats something you cant do with the other parking places for favorite icons, likethe Sidebar and the Finder toolbar.Figure 4-1. To add an icon to the Dock, simply drag it there. You havent moved the original file; when you release the mouse, it remains where it was. Youve just installed a pointer—like a Macintosh alias or Windows shortcut.Here are a few aspects of the Dock that may throw you at first: • It has two sides. See the whitish dotted line running down the Dock? Thats the divider (Figure 4-1). Everything on the left side is an application—a program. Everything else goes on the right side: files, documents, folders, disks, and minimized windows. Its important to understand this division. If you try to drag an application to the right of the line, for example, Mac OS X teasingly refuses to accept it. (Even aliases observe that distinction. Aliases of applications can go only on the left side, and vice versa.) • Its icon names are hidden. To see the name of a Dock icon, point to it without clicking. Youll see the name appear above the icon. When youre trying to find a certain icon in the Dock, run your cursor slowly across the icons without clicking; the icon labels appear as you go. You can often identify a document just by looking at its icon. • Folders and disks sprout stacks. If you click a folder or disk icon in the right side of the Dock, a list of its contents sprouts from the icon. Its like X-ray vision without the awkward moral consequences. Turn the page for details on stacks. • Programs appear there unsolicited. Nobody but you (and Apple) can put icons on the right side of the Dock. But program icons appear on the left side of the Dock automatically whenever you open a program, even one thats not listed in the Dock. Its icon remains there for as long as its running.Tip: The Docks translucent, reflective look is something to behold. Some people actuallyfind it too translucent. But using TinkerTool, you can tone down the Dockstranslucence—a great way to show off at user group meetings. See Section 17.1 fordetails. GEM IN THE ROUGH Living Icons Mac OS X brings to life a terrific idea, a new concept in main-stream operating systems: icons that tell you something. If the Dock is big enough, you can often tell documents apart just by looking at their icons. Some program icons even change over time. The Mail icon, for example (Chapter 19) bears a live counter that indicates how many new email messages are waiting for you. (After all, why should you switch into the Mail program if youll only be disappointed?) The America Online icon sprouts a flag to let you know if an instant message is waiting. You can make your Activity Monitor graph (Section 6.4) show up right on its icon. Toast illustrates the progress of a disc youre burning. And if you minimize a QuickTime movie while its playing, it shrinks down and continues playing right there in the Dock. Think of the possibilities. One day the Safari icon could change to let you know when interesting new Web pages have appeared, the Quicken icon could display your current bank balance, and the Microsoft Word icon could change every time Microsoft posts a bug fix.4.2.1. Organizing and Removing Dock IconsYou can move the tiles of the Dock around by dragging them horizontally. As you drag,the other icons scoot aside to make room. When youre satisfied with its new position,drop the icon youve just dragged.To remove a Dock icon, just drag it away. (You cant remove the icons of the Finder, theTrash, the Dock icon of an open program, or any minimized document window.) Onceyour cursor has cleared the Dock, release the mouse button. The icon disappears, itspassing marked by a charming little puff of animated cartoon smoke. The other Dockicons slide together to close the gap.Tip: You can replace the puff of smoke animation with one of your own, as describedon Section 17.2.2.Something weird happens if you drag away a Dock programs icon while that program isrunning. You dont see any change immediately, because the program is still open. Butwhen you quit the program, youll see that its previously installed icon is no longer in theDock.4.2.2. StacksA stack is what you get when you click a disk or folder icon on the Dock—and its one ofLeopards marquee new features. The effect is shown in Figure 4-2.Tip: If you press Shift as you click, the stack opens in slow motion. Amaze your friends.In essence, Mac OS X is fanning out the folders contents so you can see all of them. If itcould talk, it would be saying, Pick a card, any card ...