Not long ago we showed you how to announce when a command line task was finished by using the ‘say’ command, but because it speaks aloud it may be inappropriate to use in a quiet environment. A much more subtle notification takes advantage of Terminal apps new usage of the BEL alert, which in OS … Read More
If you keep the Applications folder in the OS X Dock for quick app launching you’ve probably noticed it’s just a giant list of all the apps installed. Sure you can change the display to use a grid, list, or fan, but if you have a lot of apps you’ll still end up with a … Read More
Virtually everyone knows you can click the yellow pill button in the upper left corner of a window to minimize a window in Mac OS X, but there are actually a few other ways minimize windows faster than that. The first is my preferred method which is a quick keystroke, and the other lets you … Read More
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 right keys pressed and keystroke combinations, you can navigate around Dock … Read More
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.
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 … Read More
Want to access the Dock faster on the Mac? 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 the … Read More
Stacks are a Dock feature in Mac OS X which allows for an easy way to see the contents of Applications, Documents, Downloads, and whatever other folder placed into the Dock. There are a few different ways to view the Stacks, which appear on the right side of the Mac Dock, like grid, automatic, list, … Read More
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 … Read More
The Dock disappears whenever an app is put into Mac OS X 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 … Read More
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.
This is a neat little hack that lets you activate any stack within the Mac 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 … Read More
Want to see recent items on a per app basis? The Mac makes this easy with a variety of ways, but perhaps one of the most convenient involves a simple tap gesture. This is particularly fast and simple, and here’s how it works.
For those using larger displays you may wish the Mac OS X Dock icon magnification was greater on the Mac, but it turns out this can be achieved easily with a defaults write command. With a little effort, you can super magnify the size of Dock icons on Mac.
You can set the Mac Dock to only show actively running apps, making it perform a bit like a task manager rather than an application launcher. This is a great trick if you prefer a minimalist Mac OS X desktop and Dock. In order to set the Dock to only display currently active apps, you’ll … Read More
You can add a Recent Items menu Stack to the Mac OS X Dock by using a defaults write command. The default is set to “Recent Applications” but once the Dock item exists you can adjust it to feature other recent items too, like Recent Files, Recent Items, Recent Servers. This is a neat feature … Read More
Mac OS X Lion includes more iOS style notifications on apps Dock icons. In this screenshot you can see them on the iChat app, showing how many unread messages are available. There are a lot of neat features appearing in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (at least in the Developer Preview), and although some people … Read More
Did you know that you can quickly quit out of an application from the Dock of Mac OS X? And did you know that you can also force quit out of an app in Mac OS X by using the Dock icon too? Perhaps not well known, but the Dock of Mac OS can function … Read More
