KEEPING A RUNNING APP IN THE DOCK AFTER YOU QUIT

KEEPING A RUNNING APP IN THE DOCK AFTER YOU QUIT

If you’re running an application and you say to yourself, “You know, I use this app a lot,” you can keep its icon in the Dock so next time, it’s just one click away. Just Control-click on the app’s icon in the Dock and choose Keep In Dock. Of course, there is another way. A cooler way. An “I don’t need no stinkin’ pop-up menu” way. Just click on the running application’s icon, drag it away from the Dock, pause a second, and then drag it right back. It’s really no faster, but it makes you look less pop-up menu codependent.

UNLOADING THE DOCK

If you have a few apps running and you like to keep things uncluttered and organized by minimizing document windows on the Dock, it doesn’t take long before your Dock gets pretty crowded. If that’s the case, here’s a tip that might help you bring some welcome space and order back to your Dock: When you’re switching from one application to the next, hold the Option key before you click on the new applications’ icon in the Dock. This hides all the Dock icons for minimized windows from the application you just left, and helps unclutter the Dock. When you switch back to that application later, its minimized windows reappear in the Dock.

GETTING RIGHT TO THE FILE YOU WANT

If you’ve parked a folder full of files in the Dock, you don’t have to open the folder to get to a particular file. Instead, just click-and-hold on the folder for a moment, and a pop-up list of all the files in that folder appear (that’s not the trick). Once that menu opens, on your keyboard, just press the first letter(s) of the file you want and that file is instantly highlighted-all you have to do is press Return to open the file.

FOLDERS TO ADD TO YOUR DOCK

Adding folders to your Dock can be a real timesaver, and two of the most popular folders to add to the Dock are your Home folder and your Applications folder. Another thing you might consider, rather than putting your entire Applications folder on your Dock, is to create a new folder and put in it aliases of just the applications and system add-ons (such as the Calculator, etc.) that you really use. Then, you can access these by Control-clicking on the folder in the Dock, and a pop-up list appears that looks a lot like the Apple menu from OS 9.