Macworld on Docks

Apps that I need drag and drop access to, or that my wife regularly uses go in the dock. Butler opens everything else for me - and it does my iTunes controlling and keeps my last five pasteboards at my fingertips.

I keep only Terminal and a few utilities such as Easy Find and Appstop (mostly so that I don't forget about their value) in the dock. I also keep oft-used folders in the dock such as Applications, Utilties, Documents and My Downloads folder for easy access via singleclick. Finaly i keep system prefs there too.

I suppose I should try Quicksilver too, since everyone seems to be, but I'm a longtime DRAGTHING addict and use that to launch most apps, as well as many favorite urls, folders, etc. With multiple layers it has much more room than the dock and to me is more easily accessible.

Quicksilver, Quicksilver, Quicksilver! A small selection of websites has a keyboard shortcut (through Quicksilver!)

The only apps permanently in my dock are Finder (duh) and Activity Monitor. Dock hides on the left side of my 12"

Quicksilver and leftie dock... only for drag-n-drop... as a recent switcher I sue alotofa Alt+tab to switch open programs

I store very little in the Dock. System Prefs, Activity Monitor (with icon on cpu history), iTunes, QuicKeys (still waiting for an Intel release, so I don't run it for now), DragThing, and LaunchBar. Those are all launched at login (except iTunes). Everything else I commonly run is in DragThing with hot keys (I use command-control instead of command-shift to reduce app conflicts to almost zero). For any other app that I launch whose name I can remember, I use LaunchBar. Rarely do I need to visit the Applications folder, and when I do, it's usually to search for some idiotically named apps via Spotlight comments. Dock's on the right to minimize lost useful screen real estate.

I always launch my apps, docs and navigate folders with Quicksilver.
The dock is hidden and contains...the apps whose name I keep forgetting ! :-D

I'm using the dock on the right side of my 24" screen only for apps I use everytime, less used apps sit in tigerlaunch and the apps I need very often are opened by Ikey (finder is opened with command+e like windows+e, terminal by command+f1 and so on from f1 to f16) so I combine the 3 ways to save time

On the left, few apps, but no too few, and no folders or documents. Launching of apps not in the Dock through LaunchBar. A very versatile setup, I think.

See: http://hiram.nl/images/dock.png

I keep 1 app in my dock: Mail.app, and that's only for drag and drop goodness. For everything else, I double-click a file that causes the app to launch, or I use apple-spacebar, type in the first couple of letters, and then use spotlight to launch the app.

No clutter, no mess, and it's a lot easier to see which apps are open.

I start about 10 applications at Mac OS X startup, these applications are also in the Dock. I like it if frequently used applications are always at the same position in the Dock so I don't have to search them. I start almost every application with Quicksilver. I don't need the Dock for Drag'n'Drop because I do it with Quicksilver, too.