Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, OS, Bad Apple, Apple, Leopard
Leopard: hard disks no longer welcome in the Dock (updated)
One of my favorite Mac tips, which I shared on TUAW ages ago, won't be making the transition to Leopard. According to David Pogue you can no longer drag your Mac's Hard Disk into the Dock. I'm not sure why Apple thinks that Stacks and a speedier Spotlight can replace the ease of use that this trick offers up, but I'm hoping that it will make a triumphant return in 10.5.1.David also highlights some other features that didn't make it into his full Leopard review.
Update: Several commenters say Pogue is flat out wrong about this. I don't have Leopard yet so I can't say for sure who is right, but it would be silly of Apple to have removed this feature.
Update 2: It would seem that Pogue was right and I just misread what he wrote. You can drag a hard disk into the Dock, but right clicking on it (or any folder) won't bring up that lovely menu you see to the right. Everything turns into a Stack in the Dock, which is decidedly less helpful if you ask me.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dave said 6:38PM on 10-25-2007
Hrm, I have my home and applications folders in my dock. I hope I'll still be able to put those there.
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Kevin Lim said 6:49PM on 10-25-2007
Argh. If you think that's bad, what about how you can't default to simply popping up a folder hierarchy in the dock to show all your items, rather than to have stacks (or the grid option) offer you a smaller selection of your files, only to have you click once more on the "Show in Finder" arrow just to see what you could in your folder back Tiger? It's simply unproductive and downright silly not to give the old option back!
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Jimbo said 6:42PM on 10-25-2007
He's wrong. It still works.
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bobnoxious said 6:42PM on 10-25-2007
Maybe I am missing something, or maybe you are. Why don't you put an alias of your drive in the dock.
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CarNJ said 6:44PM on 10-25-2007
I just tried adding my HD to the dock in 9a559. It shows up as a folder, and operates as a stack. Same thing applies to any other HD or folder you add to the dock.
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CarNJ said 6:56PM on 10-25-2007
I agree. There should be a 'List' item under the 'View As - Fan / Grid' menu item. This would allow the user to have old or new.
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ars_workerbee said 7:00PM on 10-25-2007
| 3. He's wrong. It still works.
| 4. I just tried adding my HD to the dock in 9a559. It shows up as a folder, and operates as a stack. Same thing applies to any other HD or folder you add to the dock.
Yup, just tried it, works great.
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john russell said 7:13PM on 10-25-2007
Whether the hierarchical browsing works or not, couldn't it also be done easily in QuickSilver? Just hit ~ and you're in your home directory. Boom.
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wplate said 7:21PM on 10-25-2007
I like to put servers/folders I frequently open in my Dock. Click it and a Finder window appears to that folder location. It appears that in 10.5 this goes away in favor of a stack. This is not what I want at all.
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Ryan Maxwell said 8:20PM on 10-25-2007
@john
Quicksilver evangelists like you drive me nuts. While I am comptetent at touch-typing, many people keep their hand on the mouse the majority of the time, and like to click on things rather than type.
It's not a matter of "Just hit ~". Its actually more like "Hit command space to activate quicksilver, hit shift and the ` key to get to tilde, hit enter to accept".
While quicksilver is cool, its not what we want in everywhich situation
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Chris Welch said 8:27PM on 10-25-2007
As somewhat explained above, it only works when you drag the hard disk to the Stacks area of the dock.. which makes it function as a stack would.
Not quite the ideal solution if you just want to click the disk and have it open in Finder.
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Eric Lubin said 8:30PM on 10-25-2007
for everyone who still wants to be able to click on a folder icon in the dock to view the folder, just hold down command while clicking and it will resort to the folder
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Bearxor said 8:52PM on 10-25-2007
I just tried it. As said above, it adds it as a folder and treats it like a stack. You can not right-click it to show the contents. You can do command-click, but this is unacceptable.
Apple needs to put in the 'Show as list' option.
On another note, if the dock is on the side, instead of the bottom, every stack displays as a grid. It seems fan only works if the dock is in the bottom.
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Bearxor said 8:55PM on 10-25-2007
You're misunderstanding his comment, Scott. The quote is:
"There’s no way to make the Dock show the complete list of folder contents anymore; nor can you stick your hard drive’s icon in the Dock and have complete, drill-down, hierarchical access to your entire computer, as you could before."
He is technically correct with this. You can open it in finder with a command-click (which he mentions) and you can browse the top level with stacks, but you can't go to your applications directory from the Macintosh HD shortcut. You can click the Applications item in the grid and it will then open Applications in finder. But you can't simply browse the list now without opening a finder window.
There's absolutely nothing incorrect in what he said, only in the way it was interpreted ;)
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patrick said 9:11PM on 10-25-2007
I can confirm this as not being true. When you drag your hard disk into the dock it shows up as a stack :-)
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Simon Arch said 12:47AM on 10-26-2007
Ugh...always with the Quicksilver evangelicals. Why can't you folks get it through your heads: not everyone finds Quicksilver useful, and that's okay! It works for you, but not for me. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with ME, okay? thanks.
And here's another voice confirming that yes, when you drag a hard drive to the dock it gets turned into a stack. So what Pogue ACTUALLY said was correct, and someone misrepresented what he said. I'm not one for criticising the TUAW kiddies for their content, but here's one where you really should have fact-checked before posting.
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Joe said 9:26AM on 10-26-2007
I'll take the stack/grid view over the folder list if it is faster - I have my Applications folder in the dock, and it's slow. Slow to the point that I don't really use it anymore.
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Bearxor said 2:10PM on 10-26-2007
Simon, I agree with you about Quicksilver. Never been a big fan.
However, I think you're a bit harsh in your second paragraph. We've all misinterpreted things other people have written in our lives and the original article has been updated to clarify.
And yes, it is considerably less helpful.
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Harbinger said 10:18AM on 10-26-2007
Good 'ol Butler to the rescue. I just hope it's 10.5 compatible.
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D. Law said 2:32AM on 10-29-2007
Install dragthing to get your Folder Contents view back.
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