Filed under: Terminal Tips
Terminal Tips: Make the Dock spring loaded
Spring-loaded Dock items, just like spring-loaded Finder items, are supposed to save you time by allowing you to drag a file over the folder/icon, hover for a few seconds, and have the application/folder open. Some people like these spring loaded items, while others don't -- with this Terminal "hack," you can either enable or disable this Dock feature. To enable it, open Terminal.app (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and type the following command, pressing enter:defaults write com.apple.dock enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -boolean YESTo disable spring loaded items, replace the "YES" in the command above with a "NO."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mikey P said 8:03AM on 9-24-2008
Awesome! This will save me much aggrivation!
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David said 11:55AM on 9-24-2008
Thanks! This is really a useful tip.
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Chris said 12:45PM on 9-24-2008
This is ON by default in Leopard.
That being said, I cannot get this command to work.
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Chris said 12:50PM on 9-24-2008
killall Dock
David said 2:51PM on 9-24-2008
Yes! I restarted both Finder and the Dock and it worked fine for me. A nice thing about this is that you can drag files from a stack directly to the finder icon.
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Bjorn Nitmo said 4:50PM on 9-24-2008
I'm not getting this. If you drag a .txt file over Text Edit for example and release it, Text Edit opens with the document regardless of whether the 'spring' is active or not. Since you have to release anyway, what avantage does this provide?
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gentlemanfinn said 5:35PM on 9-24-2008
As David above you said, you can drag a file from stacks onto the finder icon to have it spring open. It makes anything in the dock spring loaded which not all is normally.
I have been using this for so long that I can't remember anything else, only that I never used spring loading before and now I love it.
maso4 said 7:23PM on 9-24-2008
How do I use Terminal to kill the spring loaded folders in Finder, as mentioned in the post? Those bug me a great deal. TIA
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Chris said 7:45PM on 9-24-2008
Finder > Preferences >Spring Loaded Folders - Uncheck the box.
maso4 said 7:59PM on 9-24-2008
doh. my stupidity astounds me.
Thanks