How to Use Mac OS X Dock Features

All Apple Computers running Mac OS X come standard with a Dock at the bottom of the desktop screen. In this Dock are icons for Applications and Utilities such as Finder, Dashboard, Mail and Safari. Consider this a bar that is full of your most used Applications that is used to quickly open an Application. The Dock defaults to the bottom of the desktop screen. With a simple change of settings, you can change the position of where your Dock resides and whether you would like it to be hidden or magnified.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Apple Computer
• Mac OS X

1. 
   dock preferences

   Go to your Apple Computer's desktop screen and under the Apple icon on the top left-hand side of the desktop is the menu for the Dock. The Dock menus show if the Dock is set for Hiding or Magnification, whether the Dock is positioned on the left, right or bottoms of the desktop screen, and Dock preferences.

2. 
   dock preferences

   The Dock preferences feature allows you to change your Dock size from Small to Large, and allows for Magnification if you would like to use that feature. You can also position the Dock on the left-hand side, the right-hand side or the bottom of the desktop screen in this menu. You are also given the choice of minimizing files using the Genie or Scale effects.

3. 
   dock hiding effect

   If you select the Hiding effect to be on, the Dock will disappear from your screen whenever you are not using it. To bring the Dock out of Hiding, simply drag the pointer to the area that once housed the Dock and it will pop back up to that area again. If you keep the Magnification on, it will let your icons get bigger in your Dock whenever you drag your pointer over an icon. These are both features that can be turned on and off in the preferences.

Tips & Warnings

• The Dock is filled with what is actually an alias of each Application listed in the Dock.
• At any time you can delete an icon from the Dock. You will still have the program on your Apple Computer, just the alias has been removed.
• You can drag an Application into the Dock for placement of an alias, Apple Computer does this automatically when you drag.
• When an Application is open, it shows up in the Dock. If you cursor over the Application that is open and click once, you get a menu that lists that you can "Keep In Dock". This is another way to get an alias to stay in your Dock.

Resources

• Mac 101: The Dock

[Sidhartha]

on 11/14/2008 thanks for the info.