How to Set Dock Preferences in Mac OS X Lion

By Bob LeVitus from Mac OS X Lion For Dummies

You can change a few things about the Mac OS X Lion Dock to make it look and behave just the way you want it to. First, look at the Max OS X Lion global preferences that apply to the Dock itself. Then explore some preferences that apply only to folder and disk icons in the Dock.

Mac OS X Lion Global Dock preferences

To change global Dock preferences, choose Apple→Dock→Dock Preferences. The System Preferences application opens, showing an active Dock pane.

You can also open the Dock Preferences by right-clicking or Control+clicking the Dock Resizer and choosing Dock Preferences from the contextual menu.

Now you can adjust your Dock with the following preferences:

Size: Note the slider bar here.

As you add items to the Dock, the icons, and the Dock itself, the icons will shrink to accommodate the new ones.

Magnification: This slider controls how big icons grow when you pass the arrow cursor over them. Or you can deselect this check box to turn off magnification entirely.
Position on Screen: Choose one of these three radio buttons to attach the Dock to the left side, the right side, or the bottom of your screen (the default).
Minimize Windows Using: From this handy pop-up menu, choose the animation that you see when you click a window’s Minimize button (the yellow gumdrop).
Minimize Windows into Application Icon: If you select this option, when you minimize a window by clicking its yellow gumdrop button, you won’t see a Dock icon for that window.

If this option isn’t selected, each window you minimize gets its own personal icon on the right side of your Dock.

Animate Opening Applications: Mac OS X Lion animates (bounces) Dock icons when you click them to open an item. If you don’t like the animation, deselect (that is, uncheck) this check box, and the bouncing ceases.
Automatically Hide and Show the Dock: Choose the Automatically Hide and Show the Dock check box; after that, the Dock displays itself only when you move the cursor to the bottom of the screen where the Dock would ordinarily appear.
Show Indicator Lights for Open Applications: Select this option if you want all open applications to display an indicator light below their Dock icons.

Folder and Disk Dock Icon Menu Preferences

If you click a folder or disk icon in the Dock, its contents are displayed in a Fan, Grid, or List menu.

If you right- or Control-click a folder or disk icon in the Dock, its Options menu is displayed.

Here are the choices on the Options menu:

Sort By, which determines the order in which items in the folder or disk are displayed when you click its Dock icon.
Display As determines what the Dock icon for a folder or disk looks like.
View Contents As lets you choose Fan, Grid, or List as the menu type for the folder or disk.
Options submenu:
- Remove from Dock removes the icon from the Dock.
- Show in Finder opens the window containing the item and selects the item.