Mac OS® X Leopard™ For Dummies®

Chapter 4. What's Up, Dock?

In This Chapter

• Getting to know the Dock

• Discovering the default Dock icons

• Talkin' Trash

• Delving into Dock customization

• Adjusting Dock preferences

Take a minute to look at the row of icons at the bottom of your display. That row, good friend, is the Dock (shown in Figure 4-1 ), and those individual pictures are known as icons (which I discuss in greater detail momentarily).

Figure 4.1.  Figure 4-1: The Dock and all its default icons.

Dock icons are odd ducks — they're activated with a single‐click. Most other icons are selected (highlighted) when you single‐click and are opened when you double‐click. So Dock icons are kind of like links on a Web page — you need only a single click to open them.

A Quick Introduction to Using The Dock

Single‐click a Dock icon to open the item it represents:

• If the item is an application, the application opens and becomes active.

• If the item is a document, that document opens in its appropriate application, which becomes the active application.

• If the item is a folder icon, you see a fanned menu of its subfolders, and the Finder becomes the active application. Click Show in Finder to open the folder in a Finder window.

If the item is open already when you click its Dock icon, it becomes active.

The default icons of the Dock

By default, the Dock contains a number of commonly used Mac OS X applications, and you can also store your own applications, ...