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What would the purpose of stretching the dock across the bottom be? If you have few icons, they'd only be really spread out. Not necessarily beneficial. The ic
by statictype 16y ago
What would the purpose of stretching the dock across the bottom be? If you have few icons, they'd only be really spread out. Not necessarily beneficial.
The icons don't need to be evenly spaced. Windows gets this part right. When you don't stretch it out all the way then the position of the elements keep changing as apps get added to the dock. So, for example, dropping something into the trash or opening a new finder window (or any other app you have permanently in the dock) can't be done by muscle memory. You need to locate it with the mouse each time.
What would you do with the extra space on the 2 sides of the dock anyway? You can't really populate them with windows since the dock will, in all likelihood be covering part of the window.
I agree with the menus at the top. That's the classic example of Fitt's law at work.
- jonah 16y agoYou make an interesting point about muscle memory. My dock has enough icons that it stretches across the whole screen maybe that's why I've never noticed this as an issue. Can you imagine a left-aligned dock? Or a dock in two parts - pinned apps and open apps/minimized windows? I think it'd look horrible and the benefits would be minimal. They may have erred on the side of aesthetics and decided the usability tradeoff was minimal.
- statictype 16y agoCan you imagine a left-aligned dock? You don't have to imagine it: defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string start ; killall Dock And yes, it does look horrible. On the other hand, one that stretched across the whole screen (even with empty space) wouldn't look so bad, I think. I'll concede that the current model is more aesthetically pleasing, if less efficient.
- thehigherlife 16y agoi do a top left alligned dock, once i set it up that way, i'll never go back.
- jacobolus 16y agoI prefer end pinning. Puts the trash in a predictable place. Also, it doesn’t look horrible if you also do: defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -bool YES
- protomyth 16y agoI was partial the the NeXT dock starting at the top right and going down, but I concede that in the merge with Mac OS that area is used for other stuff.