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Hide or show Leopards new dock?

Hide or Show your Dock?

  • Hide

    Votes: 33 33.3%

  • Show

    Votes: 66 66.7%
  • Total voters
    99
djnardu

djnardu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 9, 2007
124
0
Ive always had my dock hidden, but it seems with Leopard many pics have it shown. So i'm kinda in between on how to use my dock now, maybe there will be more cool effects for it now?
 
I keep it visible but with very little on it (Adium ,Mail and iTunes), I use it for keeping track of what's running mainly.
 
I like the look of the new dock, don't get me wrong, but I always keep my dock hidden. Its just too much wasted screen space for something you use everyone so often.
 
Variant said:
MacBook Pro(15") - hidden
iMac(20") - shown
Click to expand...

Yeah, I also show on my iMac and hide on my iBook -- I prefer the dock visible, but there just isn't as much real estate on a notebook, except perhaps a 17"-er. Even if you have a very high res screen, it's still physically quite small. On the other hand, at 17", I feel like I have enough space that I can spare space for the dock. :)
 
Anyone know if the speed of showing it again is faster than in tiger? Or customizable as well as at what point when you go to the bottom of the screen it will begin showing?
 
Personally, I'll be keeping it hidden on my MacBook. I need as much screen space as possible.
 
I keep it hidden myself (have a 15 inch monitor :cool:).

If you really like the new dock and have a fairly large monitor, you might not want to hide it. Otherwise, keep it hidden if you're used to it that way.
 
I hide it. Not just because my screen is small (12"), but it also unclutters and keeps me from being distracted by other apps. Especially the Safari icon ;)
 
i really hope unsanity'y cleardock will work on leopard.

really can't stand that clunky 3d dock. wasting so much space and cpu.
 
Hidden on both my 12" iBook and 17" iMac. I'm not quite 100% sure how I'll have it setup once I get a 20" iMac paired up along with another 20" LCD but I'll probably turn hiding on on that machine, too. I rarely ever use the dock because of Quicksilver anyways. I probably only look at it to check BitRocket's ul/dl specs.
 
I always keep it shown, because I hate things popping up at me when I don't expect them (As when my mouse moves to the bottom of the screen without the intention of activating the dock). Also, waiting for it to unhide makes it take slightly longer to find and click the icon you're looking for. Moreover, I like to always be able to see my Mail and RSS aggregator icons in the dock, so I know if there are any updates for me to check.
 
I prefer it to be showing for two reasons:

[1] I can see at a glance what is running.
[2] What is faster:
a) Scrolling down near to the bottom of the screen and clicking straight the app you wish to launch.
b) Scrolling right to the bottom of the screen, waiting for the Dock to pop up, scrolling across to the app you want to launch (because it won't always be in the same place) and then clicking it.

So despite my attempts to live without the Dock showing I have found I can't get used to it. I have tit fairly small (not tiny) and find it doesn't get in the way too much on my 13" screen. If I am going to spend a long time in one app (photoshop!) I will hide it.

Interesting that no one has mentioned whether they magnify. I would have thought this feature is even less likely to be used in Leopard, as stacks dramatically cut down the number of items needed**

** I know you can pop a folder into the Dock to do a similar thing, but it is more clunky and not as elegant.
 
Anyone know if spaces will allow you to show/hide the dock differently in different spaces? I imagine that might help maintain productivity / minimize distractions.
 
wordmunger said:
I'll show it, but on the right side of the screen, and very small. On the bottom takes too much real estate.
Click to expand...

Ditto. A part of me still wishes I can drop down the Apple icon in the upper left and have that replace the dock like the old days. But I'm sure the dock is still the better option.
 
Foxglove9 said:
Ditto. A part of me still wishes I can drop down the Apple icon in the upper left and have that replace the dock like the old days. But I'm sure the dock is still the better option.
Click to expand...

I'd really prefer it on the left, but it tends to interfere with toolbar-type interfaces over there.
 
elppa said:
I prefer it to be showing for two reasons:

[1] I can see at a glance what is running.
[2] What is faster:
a) Scrolling down near to the bottom of the screen and clicking straight the app you wish to launch.
b) Scrolling right to the bottom of the screen, waiting for the Dock to pop up, scrolling across to the app you want to launch (because it won't always be in the same place) and then clicking it.
Click to expand...

I don't argue that (a) would be faster than (b), but your whole argument kind of assumes that you have to use the dock to switch or launch apps.

I keep my docks hidden on both my MacBook Pro with its 20" ACD and my dual 20" screen iMac. To launch apps, I always use Quicksilver...Cmd+Space and then the first three letters or so. That's so much faster for me, especially since I use a *lot* of apps every day, than trying to cram 30 icons into the dock and then go hunting for the one I want. To switch apps, I either use Cmd-tab (that's what I use most) or Expose. Both are much faster for me than the dock, and it allows me to have that screen space. These are both keyboard-heavy methods, which I love because my hands are always on the keyboard.

Because of these methods, the things I keep in my dock are actually seldom-used apps that would be low on my QuickSilver hit-list, or things that I have trouble remembering the name of (you laugh...but I must have some sort of mental block that keeps me from remembering "PocketMac" when I want to sync my BlackBerry).

So in short, yes I will definitely keep the dock hidden in Leopard. The dock is practically worthless to me.
 
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