Tutorial: Mac OS X Dock Tweaks

<h3 style="text-align: justify">Hello MacTalkers and may I welcome you to the new series, 'MacTalk Tutorials'</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify">Every week or so, I will be covering some of the most requested tutorials, plus some interesting ones. They may consist of a few small ones, or sometimes a more complex one. This week, I have a few basic tips which you can use to tweak the Dock on your Mac.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="size-full wp-image-3904 aligncenter" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Tutorial-Dock-3.png" alt="Tutorial Dock 3" width="600" height="106" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">If you want to suggest a tutorial which has been asked for so many times on the forum, or even some further questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact me by sending me a message on the <a href="http://forums.mactalk.com.au/members/nchester.html" target="_blank">forums</a> or by leaving a comment on this post.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">Please read on for the tweaks, Enjoy!</p>

<h4 style="text-align: justify">1. Changing your Dock to 2D</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">Getting sick of your old Glass Dock and want to try something new easily? All it takes is a simple Terminal command.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">Open up Terminal and type in the following exactly:</p>

<pre style="padding-left: 30px">defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock</pre>
<p style="text-align: justify"><img class="size-full wp-image-3858 alignnone" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Tutorial-Dock-1.png" alt="Tutorial Dock 1" width="440" height="115" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">If you want to change back to the original Glass Dock, simply replace the 'YES' with 'NO'.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">That's all there is, you now have a simple 2D dock! Now if you want to take it further, you can customise your dock a lot more using other applications such as CandyBar by The Icon Factory. Though, that process will be covered in a future article.</p>

<h4 style="text-align: justify">2. Enabling a highlight in your Stacks</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify"></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">Ever wanted your Stacks to be a bit clearer? Well, you can enable a highlight of the file that your cursor is hovering over. Again, all it takes is a simple Terminal command.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">Open up Terminal and type in the following exactly:</p>

<pre style="padding-left: 30px">defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilite-stack -boolean YES</pre>
<img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-3859" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Tutorial-Dock-2-285x300.png" alt="Tutorial Dock 2" width="285" height="300" />

Then:
<pre style="padding-left: 30px">killall Dock</pre>
<p style="text-align: justify">If you want to turn this off at anytime, simply replace the 'YES' with 'NO'.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">And there you have it, a highlighted Stack!</p>

<h5 style="text-align: justify">That's all for this week. Again, if you have any suggestions, questions or feedback, please message me on the <a href="http://forums.mactalk.com.au/members/nchester.html" target="_blank">forums</a> or comment on this post!</h5>