Terminal Tip: Disabling Leopard's Dock spring windows

I seriously hate the way that Leopard's spring-loaded download pane works. So this morning, I asked our team if there were a way to get around it. "Of course," said Brett, and he pointed me to this Mac OS X Hints page, warning me that it was a kludge.

Kludge it may be, but it was a kludge that worked just fine. I didn't quite follow the directions in that post, though, and I thought I'd share my approach because it worked a lot more easily for me.

First, I opened Terminal and changed directories to ~/Library/Preferences. I made a backup copy of com.apple.dock.plist (probably completely unnecessary, in retrospect) and converted the original version to XML from binary: plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.dock.plist.

Next, I opened the preferences property list in TextEdit and did a global search/replace on directory-tile, changing all instances to directory. I saved and then did a killall Dock.

When my dock returned, it returned with the normal, happy, uncomplicated folders you see here. When clicked, they open normal, happy, uncomplicated file browsers. Yay. Thanks, Brett, and thanks Mac OS X Hints.

Also thanks to TUAW readers Brandon, who points out that you can Command-click the folder and Rich who suggests adding folder aliases rather than the folder itself.

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Source: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200711112021121…

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I seriously hate the way that Leopard's spring-loaded download pane works. So this morning, I asked our team if there were a way to get...

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slammy

There is a short clip on how to do the "alias" trick on vimeo.... and it shows both the annoying "default" behavior of the stack as well as the end result of the aliasing trick - to directly open the downloads folder in its Finder window.

http://vimeo.com/2425388

December 04 2008 at 7:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Maxwell

For all the nay-sayers - try your control-click trick with a Dock on the side of the screen, instead of the bottom. Then, try to give a good reason why the behavior should be different. I, for one, am very grateful for this tip!

September 17 2008 at 9:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan S.

Why, oh, why does TUAW continue to pay Erica for these sophomoric posts?

* [Command] + Left Click performs exactly the behavior that she complains isn't available,
* She advocates converting a plist to text, then back again, rather than using the free, Apple-supplied Property List Editor,
* She whines about the (admittedly, oddly-) still-in-place iPhone SDK NDA, not because it's inhibiting developer progress, but because it's inhibiting her book deal,
* She's challenging Chris Barylick for the title of most-press-releases repurposed as authored content on a Mac website,
* Posting Twitter memes (need I say more?).

Granted, I appreciate all the Dev Team work, but putting up with all the crap isn't worth it.

September 17 2008 at 11:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Dan S.'s comment

Jeremy

Why, oh, why do people continue to whine about Erica's posts? I honestly don't understand what the problem is that people find with them. Hers are among the most useful of any posts on this site.

- Sure, command-click exists. But the behavior of folders in the Leopard Dock was invented by Satan to torment us here on Earth. Why do I have to command-click every time, when the default behavior is something I NEVER want? I can't even count the number of times I have yearned for a workaround for this, and here it is.

- The Property List Editor is a worthless piece of garbage. I would rather convert a binary plist to text and use a text editor, too. Plus, not everyone has it installed, as it comes with the developer tools.

- The iPhone SDK NDA is inhibiting developer progress, and inhibiting Erica's book deal is part of that. I spent six hours the other day stuck on one little, stupid thing that I couldn't find in the docs, and no one was allowed to help me. The only resource available is Apple's inadequate documentation. If I could have asked on a forum, it would probably have been a five-minute problem, since it really was that stupid and trivial. If there were books, I probably wouldn't have had to ask in the first place. It's something very much worth complaining about.

September 17 2008 at 1:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

igrok

Not sure why you'd want to do this hack. With the option set to list, you can left click and see all the docs in the downloads folder which can be opened just by selecting, or simply select "Open in Finder" to have the downloads folder opened in Finder (whether column view, icon view, whatever). A right click will bring up options, but also "Open Downloads" which opens a finder window with the folder open regardless of view, or "Show in Finder" which shows the home folder with downloads selected (so in column view you'd see the contents). I like this functionality, because I can open any document in there directly, open the folder, or open the home folder with downloads selected. So what's really being solved here? Saving a click? I wouldn't trade the functionality for a click. But of course that's just me.

September 17 2008 at 10:01 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Phil

Thanks for this tip, I have wanted this as an option for a while.
I changed the behavior of just the apps folder, I kinda like the download folder as a fan.
BTW it's easily done in the Property List Editor application, at least it worked for me.

September 17 2008 at 9:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rich

I use the list view in Finder. When I cmd-left click the Downloads folder icon in the Dock a Finder window is opened with the Downloads folder selected/highlighted. To see the contents of the Downloads folder I have to then open the folder.

In Column view the Downloads folder is selected and you can see the contents in the next column.

Does that make more sense?

September 17 2008 at 9:28 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

AdamY

Maybe I'm not understanding what we're talking about here, but I'm able to Cmnd-click on the "Downloads" stack and it opens the "Downloads" folder in Finder...

I'm sure I've obviously missed the point.

September 17 2008 at 9:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rich

Command-left click only opens a window with the folder hightlighted. It doesn't open the folder itself. A weird behaviour in my mind, but I guess it is consistent with that if it was a file.

September 17 2008 at 9:01 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

brandon

"Both the menu and context menu give the option of opening in Finder, but there's no way to have single-click-open-in-Finder without hacking the plist."

...well...if you command-click the icon, it opens the folder in Finder.

September 17 2008 at 8:49 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rich

Display as folder just alters the way the item displays on the Dock, not what happens when you click on it.

If you want window to open, which I think is the issue at hand, you could just create an alias to the Downloads folder and put that on the Dock.

September 17 2008 at 8:34 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply