Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Odds and ends, Snow Leopard
What's up, Dock? Give your Dock a little class with Dock Library
Let's face it; the Mac OS X Dock is pretty boring. I mean, other than the little glowing blue LED underneath active applications that a lot of people can't see anyway, it's just a boring, opaque white reflective shelf. Wouldn't you like to add some excitement to it?Well, you still can't relive the glory of your high school athletic prowess and put that dusty third-place trophy for shot-put on the shelf, but you can make the Dock look nicer with Dock Library. It's a shareware application from Dative Studios that enables quick switching of your Dock styles. TUAW covered this little application in 2008, but we have a lot of new readers who may not be aware of how Dock Library works.
Dock Library doesn't come with a bunch of built-in styles; for those, you need to go to sites such as LeopardDocks.com or LeopardDocks.net, both of which have a variety of free Dock templates ranging from the commonplace to the absurd.
After installing Dock Library, I chose the nice "Coffee Table Rounded" Dock design (see below), which looks like beautifully finished wood and has rounded corners. What's really nice is that those blue LEDs really show up under my active applications now, and that Dock Library works with Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard with no issues.
[via Download Squad and Sizlopedia]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jason said 3:13PM on 9-14-2009
Why do none of these dock sites ever have vertical docks? Is there a verticalleoparddocks.com site?
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mcg said 3:22PM on 9-14-2009
Seconded!
Josh said 3:47PM on 9-14-2009
There are problems because 2D docks can't use anything but a dark background. You can use 3D docks with some modding (unsure if this works in Snow Leopard or not, it did in Leopard) so you can use any 3D dock no problem in vertical mode. But if you are using a 3D dock, it is pretty limited with what you can do.
There are some options such as a few HUD style docks as well as a SL dock context menu theme but beyond that, you're not going to find anything else because the dock -must- be a dark gray/black color.
Jason said 4:10PM on 9-14-2009
Is there a resource on how to accomplish this? I'd love to use something other than my mildly modded vertical dock. (http://www.chrispie.com/blog/smooth-vertical-dock-mod-81/)
I can't believe that there isn't a way to have something other than a dark background on the 2d vertical dock.
Josh said 6:33PM on 9-14-2009
http://macthemes2.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16794659
That's a 3D dock. I believe there are others out there and, if you really wanted to, it would just take a bit of modding to change the dock to another thing. Note that I have never tried this before and might mess up your dock (it was made for Leopard) so do this at your own risk.
As for 2D docks, search deviantART for "2D dock" and I am sure you will come up with some stuff. But you really can't do anything but a dark background. No colors or anything.
Sean Flanagan said 3:16PM on 9-14-2009
I'm still waiting for a reliable, completely transparent option. Every one I tried has been borked.
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TrendGiveAfuck said 5:17PM on 9-14-2009
Just replace the following items in System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/ with a 1x1 pixel transparent PNG file:
scurve-l.png, scurve-m.png, scurve-sm.png, scurve-xl.png, separator.png
Remember to make backups of the original first!
Velireon said 3:23PM on 9-14-2009
I gotta second Jason. I am a solely-vertical kinda dock guy. Why no themes!!? So yeah, let's hope TUAW's suggested fit of creativity hits someone.
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Pat Hartl said 3:23PM on 9-14-2009
I personally hate the look of the dock, so I decided to make the 3D part transparent. It still reflects icons and windows, but it has a much cleaner look in my opinion.
http://yfrog.com/2qscreenshot20090914at221p
And yes, I do have a lot of icons in the dock.
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losty. said 5:00PM on 9-14-2009
Would you be able to upload the files for this somewhere and then provide a link? Could you rapidshare it or something like that?
Pat Hartl said 5:26PM on 9-14-2009
Yeah no problem.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5SGVLC49
By the way, I use a program called SuperDocker, it does essentially the same thing as Dock Library, but it's donation ware.
http://www.superdocker.com/
iGate said 4:18AM on 9-15-2009
hey, what icons are you using for ur Macintosh HD and Window HD partitions?
MikeWard1701 said 1:26PM on 9-15-2009
Same here, what icons are they?
Creebo said 6:54PM on 9-15-2009
http://www.aa.psu.edu/restech/img/gettingconnected/Apple_logo.png
http://www.colinharrington.net/images/os_win.icns
Not made by me. Fyi, in the EFI bootloader the Mac partition will change, but the Windows partition won't. If you want it customized check out rEFIt.
Kate said 3:26PM on 9-14-2009
My dock is shy and keeps itself hidden on the left hand side of the screen. It only takes a little nudge to get her to show her face though.
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Steffo said 3:29PM on 9-14-2009
Im rocking a transparent dock.
All you need to do is remove all the bottom*.png files (where * are numbers) from the Dock.app. Then take bottom1.png, open it up in photoshop or whatever, select all, delete, and resize the image to 250x50 (or about that anyway).
Now just switch over to the 2D/vertical background using the terminal.
I've also changed the open indicators to be little off-white chevrons with a dark grey dot under them. Which allows me to see what apps are open on any colour background.
Its completely reliable, so no problems since I first did the mod way back in 10.5.0
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Oneiroi said 3:39PM on 9-14-2009
My dock managed to default itself when I installed snow leopard. Thanks for the new options.
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Dave said 3:46PM on 9-14-2009
i experimented with a super mario style dock at one point, but now i have it on auto hide at the bottom so i get a bit more room on my 13" MB screen (incidentally from a TUAW tip) i like it that bit better now, it just looks a lot cleaner, but i have a minimalistic desktop as it is with no icons unless necessary.
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ryan said 3:48PM on 9-14-2009
I've always wished that Apple made the Dock able to rotate so you could have different collections of icons depending on the Space you're using instead of cramming a lot of small icons on just one Dock. It would be nice to be able to cycle between icon sets with a nice animation.
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Fred said 5:40PM on 9-14-2009
Try Dock Spaces from NS Coding - it's free.
http://www.nscoding.co.uk/