Mac OS X - the Dock

One of the most noticeable changes in the Macintosh user interface that was introduced with Mac OS X is the "dock". The dock basically serves as a combination replacement for the application menu (far right of Mac OS 9 menubar) and customizable Apple menu (the Apple menu can't be customized in OS X).

The dock normally sits at the bottom of your computer screen, but can also be moved to be a column along either side. It can be resized as well as hidden (in which case it becomes visible when you move your mouse near it).

The left side of the dock contains only application icons, including both icons for any application which is currently running as well as icons for application shortcuts. The right side of the dock stores the Trash icon, as well as shortcuts for documents or folders and minimized windows as well (for example, the above image has a minimized Internet Explorer window).

Currently running applications will have a small black triangle between the icon and the edge of the screen (underneath the icon if the dock is positioned at the bottom or beside the icon if the dock is on either side).

Modifying the Dock

Adding an item to the dock simply involves dragging the icon for the item to the position you want to place it in the dock. The icons in the dock will part to make space indicating where the icon will be placed when you release the button. Unlike adding items to the Apple menu in earlier versions of the MacOS, when you add an item to the dock it does not move the original item; therefore, it is not necessary to create an alias to add an item to the dock. The dock icon size will automatically adjust if necessary to fit all the icons into it. Icons can be re-arranged in the dock by dragging them to their new position.

To remove an item from the dock, drag it's icon off the dock (to the desktop or any place else). The item will disappear with a "poof" effect.

Dock Popup menus

Every item in the dock has a popup menu that can be accessed by clicking and holding on the item. This menu can also be accessed by holding the 'Control' key and clicking on the icon or by using a right-click if you have a mouse that supports it. In many cases, this menu will allow you to bring an application's window to the foreground even if it's hidden behind other windows. This menu will also allow you to quit an application without bringing it to the front, or force-quit it if Mac OS X determines the program is unresponsive or is in the process of launching.

Resizing the Dock

The dock can be resized using one of two methods. The first is to carefully position the mouse pointer at the top of the vertical divider bar which separates applications from documents and folders (see above) until the mouse pointer changes to a horizontal bar with two arrows, which will allow you to click and drag up or down to make the dock icons larger or smaller.

The second method is to access the dock settings (see below) and use the slider control located there to resize the dock icons.

Other Dock Settings (Magnification, etc)

Other dock settings can be accessed in the System Preferences (shortcut available under the Apple menu as a subitem of "Dock").

Dock size allows you to resize the icons in the dock. If checked, the Magnification setting will magnify icons when you move your mouse pointer over them. For example, you could set your dock icon size to be really small with the magnification set to make the icons large enough to easily identify when you move the pointer over them.

The scale effect is the visual effect used when minimizing a window to the dock.

The 'Animate opening applications' effect makes the icon for an application bounce while it is in the process of launching; otherwise, a black triangle will flash underneath the icon.

The last item, 'Automatically hide and show the dock', allows you to set the dock to disappear when you are not accessing it. The dock will re-appear when you move your mouse pointer near the screen edge it's hidden on.

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