The Custom Mac » SuperDocker

Customizing the Dock With SuperDocker

Caleb Pike — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:20:55 +0000

The Apple Dock is really the hub of OS X. What better way to customize your Mac than to enhance your dock appearance and productivity? Here to make this operation simple is SuperDocker. This is a must have dock tool for every Mac user.

SuperDock gives you the power to easily Optimize:

The Dock
Stacks
Finder
Dashboard
System
And More

So go out and download SuperDocker for Free and start customizing your Mac!

SuperDocker screenshots:

Customizing the Dock With SuperDocker is a post from: The Custom Mac

Custom Stack Appearance Modifications

Caleb Pike — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:04:34 +0000

Here are 3 quick ways to customize your Stacks appearance.

Custom Stack Overlay Icons

There is an easy way to take the default appearance of your dock stacks and optimize them for elegance and clarity. All you need are some icons like the ones below.

Download yours here

Once you have the icons you would like to use, name them according to the stack they represent and add a space before the name. This way the stack overlay will stay at the top of the stack.

Than just drop them into your folders. So the download icon goes in the downloads folder. You will want to edit the name of the stack icon and put a space before name. This way the icon will always stay at the top of the stack.

Adding Draw frame (Leopard Only)

To do, go grab a free copy of SuperDocker. As you know from reading the other custom Dock and Stack posts, this application is great for easily and safely customizing the Dock and Stacks. So once you open up SuperDocker, navigate the “Stack” settings tab and there you will find a check box to add a draw frame. And your done!

Removing Stack Background Grid (Leopard Only)

Fire up Finder
Navigate to Macintosh HD/System/Library/Core Services
Look for Dock and control-click on it
Choose Show Package Contents from its contextual menu and then go inside Contents → Resources Back up and delete from that folder all of image files prefixed with “stackbackground-”
Use your Terminal to restart Dock by executing command line: killall Dock

Changing Stack Background Color (Leopard Only)

Fire up SuperDocker again and in the “Stacks” there is an option to change the color or the background grid. I now it’s complicated, just breathe ok.

Custom Stack Appearance Modifications is a post from: The Custom Mac

Customizing the 3D Leopard Dock

Caleb Pike — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:52:43 +0000

The Apple dock is probably one of the most recognized, known and loved parts of Apples OS X. The dock has come a long way since its debut in the first version of OS X. Yet it comes across a little bland. The purpose of this guide is tohelp you take your dock and customize it for productivity and tailored appearance.

Get Docks

The first thing you need to do is go out and find some 3D docks you like. Get as many as you want. Make sure to keep them in some orderly fashion as this will be helpful latter on.

Here are some great places to find 3D docks:

Changing 3D Docks

There are several dock changers out there such as Panics CandyBar ($30 but shiny) Dock library (free and simple) But I am going to recommend you use Super Docker (Free and awesome) Especially since we will be using many of this applications features later. You can download SuperDocker here

Here is a quick screen cast on how to use Superdocker:

So there you have it! A customized dock, Be sure to check out the other dock post for more custom dock tips!

Add Spaces to the Dock

If your a dock junkie and have a lot of applications in your dock, things can get a little crazy. So instead of seeing your shrink once a week you can create dock spacers like the ones in the image above. Start by opening up terminal and pasting in the following command line:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add ‘{tile-data={}; tile-type=”spacer-tile”;}’

Do this for as many spacers as you would like. Then open Activity Monitor and and quit the dock. Once the dock restarts you will see a spacer in your dock.

You can reposition/remove these spacers just like any other dock item. If you would like to put a spacer in the stacks use this command line:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{tile-data={}; tile-type=”spacer-tile”;}

Remember, to remove spacers all you need to do is drag them out of the dock.

Turning off the 3D Dock

There are many reasons to turn off the 3d dock, reasons I will leave up to you to decide. But here are two ways to turn off the 3D dock so that your dock is always 2D. The first is using the terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES killall Dock

And this command to restore it:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO killall Dock

The second way to disable the 3D dock is using Super Docker. In the Dock tab of SuperDocker just change the setting from a 3D dock to 2D (see image below) and your done.

Dock Position

You are probably familiar with the three current dock positions, left, right and bottom. But there are ways to customize your dock position further. Such as putting your dock at the top left of your screen or at the bottom all the way to the right using Super Docker.

Do this in the “Dock” tab and setting the Alignment and Position on screen to desired position.

So play around with it until you find a position that is best for your work/play flow. I like having the dock on the top left so its out of the way and gives me more room for windows. Where do you like to have you dock?

There you have it. Your new awesome Dock! Be sure to check out this post on how to have multiple docks

Customizing the 3D Leopard Dock is a post from: The Custom Mac