
Mac OS X Dock Positions - showngo
http://brooksreview.net/2010/12/dock-positions/
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pilif
Only marginally related: Why does the website think it should tinker with my
browser's font rendering (-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;) when I have
configured my system for the best possible font-rendering already.

And why does it think it should mess with my selection color (::selection {
background-color: #E12000; color: white}) making my habit of selecting the
text as I read it really painful because of the way too flashy color?

I'm all for trying to create good design, but just because you can override
sensible OS defaults, it doesn't mean you have to. IMHO, this is CSS doing too
much.

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riobard
About antialiased: apparently Apple does it too. And BBC.

I really hate that.

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wazoox
A top or bottom dock (the default) doesn't make any sense since all screens
are 16:9 or 16:10. So you must put it on the sides. Which side? The default is
Right, look at any OpenStep screenshot, damned heretics! I didn't even need
thinking about it.

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evilduck
I keep mine on the bottom and hidden, it works fine. Average pointer travel
distance to the bottom is always less than one of the sides in any standard
resoution, so you can "fling" the mouse to the bottom quicker (just like the
menubar). I also use OSX on a laptop the most, where moving my hand on an
imaginary Y-axis of the touchpad is more natural for me than the X axis, which
requires more arm movement since my fingers can't curl left and right.

I'm probably not the average Mac user, but for me, the dock is more of a
status bar for me to see download progress, which apps are still running, etc,
so it doesn't matter what maximizes screen space. I don't use it to store
icons to launch apps (Spotlight instead), and when first logging in it only
contains the Finder, Trash and Downloads folder.

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scott_s
I do pretty much everything you do, except I do have a few applications
explicitly in the dock (Chrome, a Gmail SSB, Terminal, and iTunes). The reason
being I often use the dock to switch between applications, and it helps for
them to always in the same location. And no matter what I'm doing, these
applications are always open.

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sambeau
I distrust statistics that show percentages but not frequencies.

does 5% represent 2 people?

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rsanheim
Using the dock is a smell. Using Launchbar/Google Desktop/Quicksilver (or
whatever) is always going to be faster to open things. If I could turn the
dock off completely on my mac without hackery I would.

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roadnottaken
I don't auto-hide because I like to be able to see which applications are
running at a glance.

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evilduck
I know it's not "at a glance" if it requires a key combo, but you can hide and
show the dock with Cmd-option-d.

If you're also _just_ wanting to see what's running, Cmd-Tab like you were
going to switch apps, but don't cycle it, it shows the running app list.

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roadnottaken
That's an interesting point, and thanks for the key-combo (I didn't know
that). But what I like about being able to see the dock is that I often
randomly _notice_ that too many apps are running, without specifically looking
for it. It's sort of like when you notice the task-bar getting cluttered with
windows in Windows... I probably won't remember to hit a button to see how
many apps are running, but occasionally I'll just notice the clutter.

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allenp
I'm on a MBP and I've found that keeping the dock on the right side (I'm right
handed) is easier to navigate to, and leaves more space for coding.

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martythemaniak
Magnification is gimmicky - looks nice in demos, but pretty useless in day-to-
day usage.

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MikeCapone
I find it useful. It makes it easier to see where your mouse cursor landed
from the corner of your eye (my Dock is on the left) when you move the mouse
really fast, and it makes the target you're trying to hit bigger.

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iuguy
When Compiz first came out I had a widescreen laptop with a GNOME panel fixed
to the right hand side. With some compiz whizzery I was able to show different
panels for different cube sides, so I had my media side, internet side,
programming sides and so on.

Why modern operating systems don't do stuff like that I have no idea. It was
great.

