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How to hide icons in the dock

Rower_CPU

Rower_CPU

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Oct 5, 2001
11,219
2
San Diego, CA
OK, has anyone found a way to do this in Panther yet? I tried doing it the way I did in Jaguar and it's not working at all.

Adding this to the Info.plist file inside the app's contents doesn't seem to do anything.

<key>NSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
Click to expand...
 
If the app is running, just right-click the dock icon and choose "hide".

I assume you already know this though, and want some way, for example, to launch the activity monitor at startup as a hidden application that displays status info in the dock.
Not sure how this is done, or if it's possible.
 
Yeah, I'm actually talking about the icon not displaying in the dock while the app is running.

Let me touch up the topic to make that clearer.
 
It's not a need, but more of a want, and it was doable in Jaguar.

For instance, I've got an app that's always visible on my desktop and launches when I log in. I'd prefer to not have it taking up space in my dock when I won't be interacting with it via the dock. Also, I'm curious to see if it disappears from the app switcher as well.

Also, it was a very simple hack in 10.2...not a lot of "trouble" at all.
 
This is really really weird. It's working with iPulse, but not Stickies, both of which I added NSUIElement to under Jaguar. I tried doing it to TextEdit today under Panther, and it didn't work. It seems rather inconsistent.
 
In System Preference->Account Preferences under the Startup Items tab, you can add an application and check the Hide check box to hide the icon from the dock.

The above will work for items you want started when you log in.
 
Originally posted by Bear
In System Preference->Account Preferences under the Startup Items tab, you can add an application and check the Hide check box to hide the icon from the dock.

The above will work for items you want started when you log in.
Click to expand...

Doing that still leaves the icon in the dock, it only hides the app.

Macco-
I wonder if they disable it for Apple apps. I'm trying it on stickies as well, and it's a no go.
 
hmm.....that's weird, isn't TextEdit Carbon or something (sorry, I'm not a programmer of any sort :D ), and Stickies too? Maybe that has something to do with it. Or maybe I'm just assuming things.
 
Originally posted by MetallicPenguin
hmm.....that's weird, isn't TextEdit Carbon or something (sorry, I'm not a programmer of any sort :D ), and Stickies too? Maybe that has something to do with it. Or maybe I'm just assuming things.
Click to expand...

Stickies is Cocoa. It was ported. In Mac OS X Public Beta, the default Stickies said, "This is an example of how easy it is to port apps to Cocoa!"--surely a vestigial feature remaining from Rhapsody!

TextEdit is Cocoa as well.
 
Re: How to hide icons in the dock

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
OK, has anyone found a way to do this in Panther yet? I tried doing it the way I did in Jaguar and it's not working at all.

Adding this to the Info.plist file inside the app's contents doesn't seem to do anything.
Click to expand...

I know exactly what you're talking about! For some strange reason, Panther actually cache's the Plists. To reset it, with the NSUIElement set to 0 (just like in Jag), quit the app, move it to another folder (say, your desktop), then back to your applications folder. That should do the trick. That resets the cached file and it should do the expected behavior.
 
Re: Re: How to hide icons in the dock

Originally posted by MacManDan
I know exactly what you're talking about! For some strange reason, Panther actually cache's the Plists. To reset it, with the NSUIElement set to 0 (just like in Jag), quit the app, move it to another folder (say, your desktop), then back to your applications folder. That should do the trick. That resets the cached file and it should do the expected behavior.
Click to expand...

That's not doing the trick, either. I tried my desktop and another partition, and I tried set to 0 and 1...nothing...hmmm.
 
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