[Macworld.com]

Creating an invisible barrier between your files and the Dock. [more]

[JeffM]

I'm not quite getting the problem here; I must be missing something. Why not just set the dock on "Automatically hide and show the dock"? Desktop real estate is regained and the dock pops up as you need it; no need to toggle it on and off.
JeffM

[OM_user]

An old trick I used to use in the bad 'ol Classic days was to capture a pure white image and paste that into the icon preview field of the Get Info window. In OS 9 this would cause the icon to completely disappear, in effect making the folder icon invisible, only showing it's label. At that point, renaming it with spaces would make it completely invisible, at least in the Desktop view.
Unfortunately, this trick doesn't work on OS X anymore, at least as far I can tell. But there must be some way of making a folder invisible in that "icon" view, which would be better than trying to match up a portion of your desktop pattern. Of course, the one drawback to doing this is that every time you view your desktop in an open/save dialog for example, you get a bunch of unnamed folders at the top, since you can still see them in anything outside of icon view.

[cmykev]

I created a 1px X 1px photoshop document. Then I filled it with a 1% transparent white. Deleted the background layer. Then I used IconFactory's IconBuilder to make an icon that has a 1% 1px X 1px graphic. Completely invisible to the naked eye, if I do say so myself. Then I saved the Icon resource to the desktop... voil! Now, just make several copies at the bottom and start changing the file name to spaces, as said in the article.

[mbmoore]

I made the dock automatically invisible/visible, and installed DragThing to manage my desktop icons--worth every penny of the $30.
MBM

[mike3k]

I always put my dock on the far right side of the screen. It ends up to the right of the disk icons, so it isn't in the way.

[AlanCE]

me too!
Years ago I took note of the fact that vertical real estate on my screen was in shorter supply than horizontal, so I moved my dock over to the right and there it has stayed.

[Chris Breen]

In reply to:

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Why not just set the dock on "Automatically hide and show the dock"?

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I agree with you (that's what I do), but the reader said he didn't want to toggle it on and off. And he seems content to leave it at the bottom of the window.

[Dan Moren]

So, I don't know if this'll work for everybody but, I noticed this problem when I reinstalled my iBook. I use TinkerTool to put my dock at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, and my icons are kept arranged. Whenever I filled a full column, my dock would overlap the bottom icon.
This was pretty annoying until I realized a pretty simple solution: tweak the icon size in the Finder in View -> View Options. I suppose it depends on the size of your dock too, but there ought to be some happy medium between the two.

[spyderman]

How about not putting the icons on the desktop. Sure for a few frequently accessed things you could leave them on the desktop, but you could also put them in the dock itself or put them in a folder on the dock. This is what the dock is for, isn't it!?!?
You can create a new folder, put all desktop items (except disks) in the folder and then drag that folder to the right side of the vertical bar on the dock. Control click on the folder and you can navigate & select anything within from a menu...

[HappyMacMore]

I agree with you and the Top OS X tips, that a clean desktop is a happy desktop, but sometimes clutter builds up and clear icons sounds like a nice trick to solve the problem.
Ive never made my own, but a while back I found a clear icon in a set of icons I downloaded from somewhere, and started experimenting with it. Now, I keep two clear icons in my doc to separate programs. I love it because everything looks less cluttered. But that's just me.

[erikneves]

Rows of icons?! Sure it works, but at what cost? Check the tips from
http://www.macworld....ptips/index.php

[Chris Breen]

The number of icons we're talking about isn't going to kill performance unless your Desktop is completely packed with the things.

[web]

I keep my dock on the right hand side to save vertical real estate. But I also keep my desktop icons a bit neater with the desktop Broom, which you can get HERE. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
This version is adjustable if you have even a modest clue about AppleScript. If you know a bit more you can have any permanent fixtures (say, script droplets) located where they belong too.
- web
P.S. I still think the Dock sucks. Much rather have popup folders again. More flexible organization.