zootbobbalu
Registered
I know people have been posting this feature, but I haven't seen anyone mention the big picture of this feature. I have seen postings about dragging your HD icon into the dock and then simply doing a Click/Hold (aka "MouseDown/Hold") on top of the new HD icon in the dock to get a model finder window to pop up (not to be mistaken with an actual finder window that will open if you just Click on the HD icon in the Dock). You can do this with any folder too!!
For instance you can create a New Folder in your root (aka home) directory called "Desktop Publishing" and place aliases of your favorite Graphic/PageLayout/WebDesign applications into this folder. When you drag this folder into the right side (very important) of the Dock and Click/Hold on the New Folder icon in the Dock, you now have a model finder window of this folder. Repeat this for other groupings of applications like programming apps or just simply drag any folder with stuff in it that you use a bunch into the Dock. Doing this makes the Dock much better then the AppleMenu, because you don't have to organize everything into one AppleMenu (ever seen someone's AppleMenu with a million aliases and folders stuffed in it). Having multiple quasi AppleMenus in the Dock allows you to avoid having to use sub folders to organize things, but sub folders will pop open in a quasi AppleMenu.
BTW you don't have to keep the mouse button pressed down to keep the quasi AppleMenu open. Once it pops open after using the Click/Hold method, you can release the mouse button and move around in the quasi AppleMenu to select whatever is inside the folder or sub folders. To exit this mode, just Click anywhere outside the popup quasi AppleMenu (If your Dock automatically hides when the mouse is not over it, just Click anywhere outside the popup menu, but inside the Dock to keep the Dock open).
Note 1: The quasi AppleMenu is not an actual menu. It's behaviors are more like a model finder window (like an Open dialog), therefore the model finder window will be active until you select an item or until you click outside the window. Maybe Apple will make the behavior of this quasi menu more like a real menu, so you can get any folder icon to pop up when you move your mouse arrow over another folder icon.
Note 2: It is easy to make these quasi AppleMenus icons look different from each other. All you have to do is "Show Info" of the folder that you want to drag into the Dock and change the folder icon in the top left of the info window by pasting a piece of clip art of your choice. If you don't know how to create an icon from scratch, you can simple go to any item on your hard drive with an icon that you like and copy the clip art from that icon. You can copy the clip art from an icon by; selecting the item, selecting "Show Info" in the File Menu of the Finder, selecting the icon in the info window by clicking on it and then selecting "Copy" from the Edit Menu of the Finder. It's important to change the clip art of the folder icon before you drag the folder into the Dock to insure that the new icon will appear in the Dock.
Note 3: It appears that a sub folder that is an alias to another folder will not pop out a sub menu in a quasi AppleMenu. rharder commented on this bug and there is a way to fix this with a cshell command. rharder has agreed to write up a simple guide to do this for newbie Unix users. I'll incorperate his guide here when he posts it (thanks rob). If you're familiar with Unix, just check out his reply below. A simple but less flexable approach is to avoid using aliases of folders in quasi AppleMenus for now..... Stay Tuned...
Note 4: I heard that you can control-click on these quasi AppleMenu icons in the dock to get them to pop open.
I was one of the people who thought the Dock was incomplete and not as functional as the AppleMenu. In this case, ignorance was not bliss. Spread the word around about this feature. Figuring out this one Dock feature made me a bigger fan of Mac OS X. Isn't it funny how simple features really make a difference.
For instance you can create a New Folder in your root (aka home) directory called "Desktop Publishing" and place aliases of your favorite Graphic/PageLayout/WebDesign applications into this folder. When you drag this folder into the right side (very important) of the Dock and Click/Hold on the New Folder icon in the Dock, you now have a model finder window of this folder. Repeat this for other groupings of applications like programming apps or just simply drag any folder with stuff in it that you use a bunch into the Dock. Doing this makes the Dock much better then the AppleMenu, because you don't have to organize everything into one AppleMenu (ever seen someone's AppleMenu with a million aliases and folders stuffed in it). Having multiple quasi AppleMenus in the Dock allows you to avoid having to use sub folders to organize things, but sub folders will pop open in a quasi AppleMenu.
BTW you don't have to keep the mouse button pressed down to keep the quasi AppleMenu open. Once it pops open after using the Click/Hold method, you can release the mouse button and move around in the quasi AppleMenu to select whatever is inside the folder or sub folders. To exit this mode, just Click anywhere outside the popup quasi AppleMenu (If your Dock automatically hides when the mouse is not over it, just Click anywhere outside the popup menu, but inside the Dock to keep the Dock open).
Note 1: The quasi AppleMenu is not an actual menu. It's behaviors are more like a model finder window (like an Open dialog), therefore the model finder window will be active until you select an item or until you click outside the window. Maybe Apple will make the behavior of this quasi menu more like a real menu, so you can get any folder icon to pop up when you move your mouse arrow over another folder icon.
Note 2: It is easy to make these quasi AppleMenus icons look different from each other. All you have to do is "Show Info" of the folder that you want to drag into the Dock and change the folder icon in the top left of the info window by pasting a piece of clip art of your choice. If you don't know how to create an icon from scratch, you can simple go to any item on your hard drive with an icon that you like and copy the clip art from that icon. You can copy the clip art from an icon by; selecting the item, selecting "Show Info" in the File Menu of the Finder, selecting the icon in the info window by clicking on it and then selecting "Copy" from the Edit Menu of the Finder. It's important to change the clip art of the folder icon before you drag the folder into the Dock to insure that the new icon will appear in the Dock.
Note 3: It appears that a sub folder that is an alias to another folder will not pop out a sub menu in a quasi AppleMenu. rharder commented on this bug and there is a way to fix this with a cshell command. rharder has agreed to write up a simple guide to do this for newbie Unix users. I'll incorperate his guide here when he posts it (thanks rob). If you're familiar with Unix, just check out his reply below. A simple but less flexable approach is to avoid using aliases of folders in quasi AppleMenus for now..... Stay Tuned...
Note 4: I heard that you can control-click on these quasi AppleMenu icons in the dock to get them to pop open.
I was one of the people who thought the Dock was incomplete and not as functional as the AppleMenu. In this case, ignorance was not bliss. Spread the word around about this feature. Figuring out this one Dock feature made me a bigger fan of Mac OS X. Isn't it funny how simple features really make a difference.
