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Dock Basics

The following refers to the dock in its default position, which is at the bottom of the screen. I actually recommend putting it on the right in many cases, especially if you have a screen which is wide compared to its height (eg the 1440x900 screen on many PowerBooks and MacBook Pros). If you have the Dock on the right the information below which mentions left and right should be read as above and below, etc instead. To move the Dock to the right control-click the dividing line and choose Position on Screen: Right from the contextual menu.

Items get into the dock in several ways. First, the Trash is always in the dock and, except in unusual circumstances, so is the Finder. A white line divides the dock into two parts. On the left is space for programs and on the right documents (plus the Trash). Programs automatically appear in the dock when they are launched. You can put a program in the dock without running it by just dragging it there, then you can just click to launch it. Programs without a triangle under them aren't running. When you minimise a window (click in the yellow button) it is "minimised" to the dock (a miniature version appears in the right side).

You can remove an item from the dock by just dragging it out. Re-arrange items by dragging them from one place to another. To see the original of an item hold down command and click the item. Hold down control and click an item to see a menu showing special commands the program can do and a list of the program's windows.

Contact: OJB, OJB@mac.com. Features: Blog, News Feeds, Podcasts, Feedback, Log. Modified: 07 Jul 2006. Hits: 14,215,664.