[nthnl]

Quote:

---

Is Apple's VPN menu extra not functional enough to use in place of Internet Connect? Is Camino also not a worthy alternative to Internet Explorer? How come you prefer Calculator.app to Calculator.wdgt?

---

The widget is only useful when doing quick basic calculations. For doing any scientific calculations (e.g. sin/cos/logs) or programmer's calculations (e.g. rotate, shift, hex<->decimal), you have to use Calculator.app.
In my dock is Safari, Mail, iTunes, iPhoto, Photoshop, Palm Desktop, Terminal, Quicktime, Keynote, Pages, Fire, Activity Monitor, Xcode, Word, Excel and Cyberduck.
- I do some development work, including for web pages, so I need Xcode, Terminal, Cyberduck and Activity Monitor.
- Quicktime is there so I can drag and drop media files onto the dock icon to open them directly in Quicktime instead of (e.g.) iTunes where it imports it into my Library

[OM_user]

Quote:

---

And, for the record, that dock of mine was created for the express purpose of talking about round application icons

---

Phew! Thank goodness! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif My faith in you had been momentarily shattered Rob when I laid eyes on that obscenely long dock.
There are a few items in my dock that I should probably remove, since I rarely touch them.
In my dock I have from left to right (after Finder of course):
System Prefs
Firefox
Safari
iChat (should be removed)
Mail.app
iCal
Address Book (should be removed)
Terminal
iTunes
iPhoto
iWeb (should be removed)
FontAgent Pro
Calculator
MacReporter
Missing Sync for Palm (could be removed since there is a menu item already for it)
Automator
Then, to the right of the divider I have specialized folders with aliases to apps, like Graphics, Productivity, Games and Server which has apps related to when I'm on the company VPN. I also have my own Desktop there.
And that's it.
One thing that is conspicuously missing from my dock which is probably in most Tiger docks is Dashboard. It's been banished from my dock permanently, even though Dashboard is active on my system. I simply don't see the need to have it there when it's so easy to access it with F12.

[RhymingDesigner]

Just as telling is the question, "WHERE is your Dock?"
For the life of me, I can't understand why anybody with a 16:9 screen would keep the dock at the bottom instead of the side.
And if you need an industrial strength Dock, consider XMenu.

[Axl]

What strange docks people have! I am surprised to see IE but I am kinda used to it as my wife insists on using it. I use a Safari/Firefox blend. The spell-checker and search facility built into Firefox earns it a space in my Dock, as does the superb web-developer plug-in. The oddest thing, though, is the way people don't 'group' their icons. I'm not the kind of person who alphabetizes my collections, be they books or cd's or favorites, but a chaotic doc? C'mon! I actually have a two tier system. I have all my secondary apps dotted along the top of my finder window. Makes sense to me. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[Jason Snell]

Okay, I'll bite (and for the record, mine's pinned to the top right):
Finder, DragThing, BBEdit, Eudora, iTunes, iCal, iChat.
That's it. The rest are all launched via LaunchBar. :-)

[keyboarder]

From left to right after Finder: Activity Monitor, Address Book, AppleWorks, Calculator, CopyWrite, Dashboard, Disk Utility, DVD Player, Firefox, GarageBand, Google Earth, iCal, iChat, iDVD, iJournal, iPhoto, iTunes, Keychain Access, LaunchBar, MacJanitor, Mail, MeetingMaker, Microsoft Word, NewsFire, Preview, Quicktime Player, Safari, System Preferences, TextEdit, and a Pages trial [expires today]. Rounding out the end of the Dock are my home folder and the trash can.
A few of the programs, like GarageBand, are there to remind me to use them before deciding if I want to keep them or not. Yes, my program icons are grouped alphabetically, because I'm weird like that. I've always kept my Dock on the bottom but the comment about placing it to the side for a 16:9 screen is intriguing, since I have a new MacBook. Maybe I'll try changing the Dock's placement this weekend.

[MacAdict]

I keep applications I actually use daily (or at least weekly) in my dock, and other applications that I use sometimes, but do not want taking up space in my dock in a dashboard widget called DashDock.
Here is what is in my real dock:
Finder
Dashboard
EarthDesk
Printer Utility: So I can drag things onto it to print them.
Camino: The best web browser ever.
Adium: The best IM client ever.
NewsFire: Need it to keep on top of the Macworld new feeds.
Microsoft Word: Blah. But sometimes I have to use it.
Text Mate: Mostly so I can get out of using Word while still having more power than TextEdit, though it also gets plenty of use for programing.
iPhoto
Photoshop Elements: Because I am too cheap to get the full version.
EyeTV
System Preferences: I like to tinker with my preferences.
Terminal: Hmmm, perhaps this should be moved to my DaskDock to save space....
Activity Monitor: So I can track down the CPU hogs quickly and easily.
NetBeans (Java IDE)
Civilization IV Warlords: I usually do not put video games on my dock, but this one is just too good to resist.
Folders:
Downloads: Makes it easy to stay organized with huge amounts of downloads, especially when they are .dmgs.
Temporary Files: Files that are temporary.

[ice_cold_irony]

Hello Everyone
I guess it's my turn for a go at it.
I've got mine on the left hand side of my screen to disappear on its own because on the Macbooks 'cozy' screen I find up down real estate more valuable than left right. And I for one actually do have my dock icons <loosely> organized into different types of programs. I also use Butler's handy dock-esque thing to have access to common folders like movies, docs download folder etc.
SO my dock is from top to bottom.
Finder
Dashboard
Safari
Firefox
iTunes
Msn Messenger
Azereus
Skype
Pages
Neooffice
Keynote
Address Book
iCal
Photobooth
iPhoto
Aperture (tho my trial is up so I'm not sure why its still there)
iMovie
iDVD
Garageband
System Profiler
Activity Monitor
iSquint
Handbrake
Stickies
VLC
and Trash.
There you have it what a poor, starving Mass Comm student has in his humble dock.
See ya

[Winski]

I don't think the apps in a person's dock are as telling as what is to the right of the divider. I have all my standard apps in my Dock, but to the right of the divider I have my HDs, my Documents folder, my Apps folder and my Trash.

[Andrew_Wagner]

This is my dock:
http://www.digitalas...images/dock.jpg
There is one major pattern that i have noticed in all the docks that people have posted: No one uses the right side of the dock! The left side (application side) is very powerfull by itself but the right side (files and folders) can be just as powerful. I decided to put my most used folders along my dock, leaving off most of the applications (using quicksilver to launch most of my applications).
The greatest part of keeping folders in the dock is that you can right-click or click and hold on the folders to open a contextual menu of its content. This is extremely usefull to access files and applications within as long as they arn't buried to deep within the folders.
The only applications I keep on the dock permently are:
1. My Printer...so that I can easily print a lot of files by dragging them to that icon
2. Photoshop....I drag a lot of things to the photoshop icon because they don't automatically open in photoshop (i still like to use preview to quickly look at images)
I set dashboard and quicksilver not to show their icons even though they are always running because I like to aviod clutter.
This is just the dock I came up with and I think it is very usefull for all of my random endeavors.
P.S. I created those weird icons for some of the folders for the classes I am taking because I did not want to have the standard folder icon (would be confusing)...and the pencil is something I did when i was board for a humanities class /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Update: It looks as if someone beat me to the whole documents and folders on the right side! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[ice_cold_irony]

Hey again
From the "oh yah" department of my brain I remembered and Idea(it looks so much better capitalized) I had a few weeks ago. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a little arrow or some other toggle button at the top or bottom of the dock that you could switch between Dock 'themes' with? Like for a laptop have a work dock and a home dock (so you can take away the tempting distraction of Civilization while working) or help separate you work from home life. It's a fairly useless feature unless you're really strapped for space or so incredibly lazy you don't want to go the apps folder but meh. I seem to have become incredibly wordy over these two post so I shall bid you all goodnight and save us all some time.
See ya

[Downing]

My dock's pretty standard except I added a Lacie icon for my backup hard drive and Automator because it looks so cool.
Just knowing that little robot guy is down there makes me feel so much safer when I go on Safari. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[DarthMac]

RHS from top. Finder, Safari, Mail. Firefox, Shiira. Camino, Vienna, Adium, Yummy FTP, VueScan, Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, InDesign, TextEdit, TextWrangler, xPad, NeoOffice, AppleWorks, Dictionary, Address Book, iTunes, System Preferences.

[danmusician]

I agree with eariler posts - it would be interesting to discuss "where" is your dock. I moved mine to the left side of my screen after I saw another user with it there. I keep my dock hidden, and I find that I accidentally show it with the cursor less often when it's on the left.
I also think it would be interesting to discuss what people have in their dashboard. I agree with the earlier poster who doesn't keep Dashboard in his Dock, he just uses F12.
My Dock has:
FINDER
DVD PLAYER
ICAL
MAIL
ADDRESS BOOK
SAFARI
GOOGLE EARTH
IPHOTO
ITUNES
DIGITAL PERFORMER
FINALE
BAND-IN-A-BOX
AUDIO-MIDI
TOAST TITANIUM
APPLEWORKS
QUICKTIME
IHEARTS
DAVID'S BACKGAMMON
WORD
EXCEL
Here's a fun game - guess what I do for a living based on what's in my Dock!
I also keep an icon for the current DP file I am working on, and a shortcut to my personal finance folder.
There are a few apps that I use on rare occaision, like Graphic Converter. I tend to access those from Apple Menu/Recent Items. (An old habit from my OS9 days.) My Recent Items pref is set to 50 apps and 0 Documents.
I keep Quicktime in the dock because occasionally I want to open a media file with it that has a different app as it's default. I just drag the file icon to the quicktime icon on my doc.