For the power users out there who prefer to leave their hands on the keyboard as much as possible, you’ll be pleased to know that the Dock in Mac OS X can be used exclusively from the keyboard with full functionality. With just the keys, you can navigate around Dock items and apps, access the right-click menu, launch apps, force quit apps, hide others, and more.

• Control+Function+F3 (Function+F3 on older Macs) to summon the Dock with keyboard navigation enabled, works even if the Dock is hidden by default
• Left & Right Arrow keys to move within the Dock items
• Up Arrow key to pull open the Dock items menu, the same as right-click
• Return key to launch the currently selected app
• Use keyboard letters to jump to apps by first letter of the app name
• Hold Option key while navigating to, then hit the Up Arrow key to access Force Quit
• Command+Return to reveal the Dock item in the Finder
• Command+Option+Return to hide all other apps and windows except for the selected Dock item

You must use the initial Function+F3 command to enable the keyboard navigation in the Dock each time you want to use the keyboard shortcuts, otherwise the remaining keyboard commands will not work as intended.

To be even faster, these tips are great to combine with removing the Dock show and hide delay and having a speedier Dock animation.

Activity Monitor can be used for more than just managing tasks and killing processes, it can also turn the Mac OS X Dock into a live system monitor where you can keep an eye on processor usage, CPU history, network activity, disk activity, or RAM use.

1. Launch Activity Monitor, found in /Applications/Utilities/
2. Right-click on the Dock icon and scroll up to the “Dock Icon” submenu and select one of five available options:
• Show CPU Usage – this is a live gauge of processor activity on the Mac, each CPU core is shown as a separate bar, this is probably the most useful of the five choices (shown up top)
• Show CPU History – this shows processor load and use graphed over time, each CPU core is shown separately
• Show Network Usage – displays a graph of incoming (green) and outgoing (red) network traffic, this can be helpful if you’re on a sketchy internet connection or are carefully conserving bandwidth
• Show Disk Activity – shows a live graph of disk reads (green) and writes (red) in the same format as Network Usage
• Show Memory Usage – displays a pie chart of current RAM usage and allocation on the Mac, green is free memory, red is wired, yellow is active, and blue is inactive memory

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Automatically hiding the Dock is one of the more useful features you can enable if you work on a Mac with limited screen space. That experience can be improved by removing the auto-hide delay from the Dock in OS X, which reduces the delay from when a mouse is hovered near the Dock to when it’s displayed, but now we’ll show you how to speed up or remove the slide-in and slide-out Dock hide and show animation itself.

Remove Dock Animation Completely

First up, removing the Dock animation completely, this makes an auto-hiding Dock snap into place immediately. Launch the Terminal and use the following defaults write command:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0;killall Dock

The Dock will automatically restart with the changes taking effect.

Set an Ultra-Fast Dock Hide & Display Animation

This leaves the Docks animation intact, but speeds it up dramatically. You can adjust this yourself by changing the numbers after the -float flag:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.12;killall Dock

Restore Default Animation Speed

Return to the OS X default animation speeds with the following defaults write command:

defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier;killall Dock

Thanks to Levi for the tips in our comments!

If you use a hidden Dock in Mac OS X, you can speed up the time it takes to show the Dock with a defaults write command. This command removes the delay from when a cursor is hovered near the Dock location and to when it’s displayed, it doesn’t change the animation speed of the dock sliding in and out itself.

Remove the Delay for Auto-Hide & Auto-Show of Dock

Launch the Terminal and enter the following defaults write command:

defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0 && killall Dock

The tail end of the command includes killall which will cause the Dock to relaunch in order for changes to take effect. After it has been refreshed, hover over the area of the screen where the Dock is hidden and you’ll notice it shows up immediately, without the fraction of a second delay.

This tip also impacts how to show the Dock in a full screen app, preventing the need for a double-swipe down when in full screen mode, and instead displaying the Dock instantly with a hover in the region.

Return to Default Dock Hide/Show Delay

To return to the default setting and autohide delay, go back to the Terminal and enter the following command:

defaults delete com.apple.Dock autohide-delay && killall Dock

The Dock will again relaunch and settings will return to their default state.

This is a handy tip from MacWorld, thanks for sending it in Eric

Stacks are a Dock feature added to Mac OS X a while back that let added an easy way to see the contents of Applications, Documents, Downloads, and whatever other folder placed into the Dock.

To change the icon size of Stacks, the stack must be shown as “Grid”, this can be set with a right-click. Open the Stack and use the following keystrokes:

• Command + to increase the icon size
• Command – to decrease the icon size

Size adjustment is made immediately and can be set anywhere from one extreme of huge, to small, or anywhere in between.

Hopefully a similar feature will be implemented for Launchpad, which is currently stuck at a single size, although it can be modified to be slightly smaller.

We have gone through tons of OS X Dock tips before, but with the help of a free Lion compatible app called Docker, we can apply many changes to the Docks behavior and customizations to the Docks appearance easily with just a few clicks.

What exactly can you customize? Using Docker, you can: change Dock style from 3D to 2D, adjust translucency of icons, change the indicator style and color, change the color of the Docks outline, customize the Docks background to an image or a transparency, change the Docks position on screen, switch the minimize effect, increase the icon size beyond the default limits, make various changes to the app icons within the Dock, add spacers to the left and right side of the Dock, add custom stacks, and more.

• Download Docker for free from Blocksoft

Of course you can always revert back to the default settings at any point too. Here are a few different Dock styles that were quickly made with the help of the app:

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The Dock disappears whenever an app is put into Mac OS X Lion’s full screen mode, but that doesn’t mean you can’t access the Dock if you need it. To show the Dock in a full screen app, swipe twice at the bottom of the screen, the first swipe won’t show anything but the second swipe will draw the Dock upwards as usual.

Regardless of Dock auto-hide settings this will activate.

This feature is exclusive to versions of OS X that have full screen app mode, which was introduced in OS X 10.7 and continues in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and later.

Just like you can add spacers between app icons in the OS X Dock (the left side), we can also add these same spacers to the right-side of the Dock, where the Applications, Documents, Downloads, and Trash icons live.

Launch the Terminal and paste the following defaults write string into the command line:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}' ;killall Dock

If you want multiple spacers added, just hit the up arrow and return to initiate the command again. Each execution of the defaults write command will create one additional spacer in the Dock.

After a spacer has been added, you can click and drag it around the Dock to fit between icons. If you want to remove it, drag it out of the Dock like any other Dock item.

As previously mentioned, if you’re wanting to put spaces in the left side of the Dock instead, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}' ;killall Dock

Notice the two commands are different, and the spacers can not be dragged from the left side of the Dock to the right, or vice versa.

Both of these commands work with Mac OS X Lion and prior releases.

Here’s another awesome tip from Keir Thomas, the author of a new book called Mac Kung Fu, which contains over 300 tips and tricks for OS X Lion. He’s the same guy who discovered the iTunes “Now Playing” notification tip and the Quick Look select text tip. Here’s the tip direct from Keir:

This is a neat little hack that lets you activate any stack within the Dock by hovering over it and making the scroll gesture on a multitouch trackpad or Magic Mouse, or by rolling the scroll wheel on a mouse.

Do the same trick while hovering the mouse cursor over an app icon in the Dock, and App Exposé will activate. You will see open program windows for that particular app and—with compatible apps—the app’s document history. This is similar to the App Exposé option within the More Gestures section of the Trackpad entry within System Preferences.

However, in each case, once you’ve activated the secret setting, you need to scroll up to activate (that is, to make the stack expand), and then scroll down to deactivate (to make the stack hide again). You’ll need to scroll a substantial amount to activate the feature so that OS X knows you’re doing it on purpose and not accidentally. In other words, you’ll need to flick the scroll wheel up rather than just rotate it a few clicks.

To activate this hidden feature, open a Terminal window and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.dock scroll-to-open -bool TRUE;killall Dock

The changes take effect immediately. To deactivate this feature, open a Terminal window and type the following:

defaults delete com.apple.dock scroll-to-open;killall Dock

You can quickly see any apps recent items in Mac OS X Lion by using a two-fingered double-tap on that applications icon in the Dock.

This brings up a menu contained within Mission Control showing all of your recent items, and if you have currently opened items they will be displayed above the list. The trick also works on apps that are not currently open, allowing you to see recent items without launching that app.

This tip was sent in by one of our readers, who cautions that you will also see recent items you may have forgotten about or don’t intend on being visible. Thanks for the tip Nilesh!