Mac 101: Mimic Stacks in Tiger

Here's a simple trick that will let you approximate Leopard's "Stacks" feature in Tiger (without all the cool eye candy, of course).

Lifehacker suggests moving your documents folder, a download folder, etc. into the dock. Then right click that folder (or Control-click or simply click and hold...whichever you prefer) to see that folder's contents.

That's fine, but if you want to get fancy, create a smart folder to live in your dock. I made one to mimic Steve's collection of recent images:

From the Finder's "File" menu, select "New Smart Folder"
Set the criteria to be "Created = Today" and "Kind = Images"
Give your folder a descriptive name (like "Today's Images"), save it and drag it into the dock!

Now you have a folder that will automatically populate itself with all of the images you create on a given day. I clicked the folder window's chicklet (upper right hand corner) to give it more of a "Stacks panel mode" feel by eliminating the toolbar and sidebar.

Yes, this only the most modest approximation of the most superficial functionality of stacks, but it's the best we have until October.

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Source: http://lifehacker.com/software/how-to/mimic-stacks-in-mac-os…

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Mac 101

Here's a simple trick that will let you approximate Leopard's "Stacks" feature in Tiger (without all the cool eye candy, of...

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Why not use spotlight to call up application instead of putting the Application folder in the dock? It less clutter and more actuate!

June 17 2007 at 11:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Greg Scown

Jesse - We here at SmileOnMyMac produce TextExpander, and we definitely plan to have a version available which runs on Leopard.

TextExpander is not an input method, so any changes to those will not affect us.

June 13 2007 at 12:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Galley

There's always Overflow if you want a floating launcher.

June 13 2007 at 10:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Halopend@gmail.com

To pangelav, all dragging to the dock does is create a shortcut, if you move or delete the original file, the shortcut no longer works. I'm not sure which situation you are in but if you simply movied it, spotlight should find it unless you buried it in the system files.

June 12 2007 at 8:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

pangelav

When I moved the downloads folder (already heavily used) from my desktop to the right side of the dock, it worked for a little while. Then I removed it from the desktop, and when I went to folder on the dock there's a big "?" mark there and NOTHING. So where did my downloads folder go? I used finder and QS to try and locate it but nothing.

June 12 2007 at 6:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Pete

I keep my Applications folder in my Dock. I hate it -- if it's been a while since last use, it takes several seconds of disk churning before the menu appears. I trust that won't happen with the new system.

June 12 2007 at 5:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Benjamin

Mephistophelian--sure there is! Just go to your Desktop, drag the hard disk icon over to the Dock, then open Finder's preferences window (Cmd-,) and un-tick Hard disks from the General tab.

June 12 2007 at 1:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Cyberwhore

Is there a way to get rid of the hard drive off the the desktop and put it in the dock only?

June 12 2007 at 1:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

macsterdam

And for those wishing they had Quick Look now, I suggest you have a look at MacGizmo (Apple probably got the idea from him!)

June 12 2007 at 1:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Johnny

I've been doing 'stacks' since the beginning of OS X when I put my applications folder on the dock to act as my 'Apple Menu Items'. The difference is, I'm not sure if you will be able to have sub-stacks which makes it more limited although prettier.

I tend to keep things organized so I really don't have any need for smart folders (or even spotlight very often). However, due to OS X's inability for many apps to be found if not directly in the '/Applications' folder, I might need it to group apps eventually. Damn, I'm 'old school'.

June 12 2007 at 12:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply