Dock question

[Pete123]

In the dock preferences, it gives the option to have the dock on the right, left, or on the bottom. Is there any way I can have the dock on the bottom but slide it over to one side i.e. bottom right?

Thanks

[Mikuro]

Yes. This is one of those features that Apple built into OS X, but they just didn't build in any way to ACCESS it. So you need a third-party app, like the free TinkerTool, to access the option. I personally have my dock along the right side, stuck to the top.

[Lt Major Burns]

it's in the middle, on the bottom for a reason, anywhere else and it gets fiddly, the way the human hand works has really been taken into consideration in os X. i mean, it's certainly workable in other positions, but that is the optimal place for it.

[Mikuro]

Caution: Long-winded, largely off-topic user-interface ramblings ahead.

Originally Posted by Lt Major Burns

it's in the middle, on the bottom for a reason, anywhere else and it gets fiddly, the way the human hand works has really been taken into consideration in os X. i mean, it's certainly workable in other positions, but that is the optimal place for it.

I have to disagree. REALLY disagree. Having it anchored to a corner makes it much easier for me to use, because the items don't move around at all that way. My Finder icon is ALWAYS in the same place, my Safari icon is ALWAYS in the same place, etc. That's valuable. When it's set to float in the center, they move around with every application I load and every window I minimize, so they're not as easy to hit. It doesn't make sense to have something so frequently used move around any more than it absolutely needs to.

This is one reason I think Apple's decision to put the Trash in the Dock was flat-out stupid. It always moves around, so it's harder to hit consistently. Anchoring it to the bottom would fix that problem (and also keep any folders and files you added in constant place), but personally I find my app placement more important, so I keep my Dock at the top instead (which admittedly makes the Trash move even MORE, but I don't find the difference to make it much more inefficient than normal).

Also, having it anchored to the top reclaims some desktop space below it, since it almost never expands close to the bottom of my screen. I love shoving text clippings and the like into the corner of my screen, where they're almost always visible and accessible.

In general, the closer something is to a corner, the easier it'll be to access.

I guess it depends on how you use the Dock, though. Some people put every app they ever load in there permanently, so it wouldn't move around as much as apps are loaded and quit. There are also people who keep it so big that it extends from corner to corner anyway, which would make all of this a moot point. As for me, I only keep a few apps permanently in my Dock, and I keep it at a constant, modest size. For the vast majority of my installed apps, I rely on Butler for quick keyboard-based access.

Basically, I use the Dock almost exactly the same way I used the Application Floater in OS 8/9 (which also needed a third-party tool, called Prestissimo, to access some vital 'hidden' features). The way I have it set up, the Dock is flat-out better as an application switcher, which is what I need it to be most of all. With the default settings, though, it's not.


As for the bottom edge vs. right edge....I dunno. I've never understood how anyone can stand it at the bottom, personally. I hardly ever need to scroll anything horizontally, but I need to scroll just about everything vertically, so I want as much vertical space as I can get. Vertical screen real estate has always been more important than horizontal, and that's even more true now with the push towards widescreen displays. I also like to keep the right edge of my screen free of windows anyway, to allow quick access to my drives, so putting the Dock at the right doesn't really affect my workspace at all.

The menu bar needs to be at the top because it's all about text, but the Dock doesn't use text, so there's no reason for it to be aligned horizontally. Moving the Dock to the right frees up the bottom for text-heavy uses that really require it.

Well, I think this post is getting juuust long-winded enough, so I'll leave it that. I earn my title (see just below my user name).

[Pete123]

A great help, thanks.