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kbbaucom · Nov 26, 2001, 10:43 AM

My room mate had the idea of having two docks, in different locations, with different things in them (one with apps, one with folders, whatever). I tried to get it working a couple months ago, but never figured it out. I got several other cocoa apps to use different prefs files, and run two at the same time (an analog and digital clock running at the same time, each with it's own prefs file, and two Omniwebs with different prefs). There seems to be something in the System that doesn't allow two docks to run at once. I can't seem to find it though. Anyone have an idea?

v0id7 · Nov 26, 2001, 11:30 AM

drag thing will look just like a transparent dock if u use the transparency option and u can even make it come up when u move your mouse to a certain side of the screen

rstevens · Nov 26, 2001, 11:48 PM

lovin' the drag thing - but is there any way to run it w/o a dock icon?

v0id7 · Nov 27, 2001, 08:17 PM

i dont use my dock at all, i just made it very small and put it on the top of the screen

MacGorilla · Nov 27, 2001, 11:20 PM

Originally posted by v0id7:
i dont use my dock at all, i just made it very small and put it on the top of the screen

Top of the screen???? how did you manage that?

kbbaucom · Nov 28, 2001, 12:08 AM

Originally posted by MacGorilla:


Top of the screen???? how did you manage that?

Easy. Just modify com.apple.dock.plist in ~/Library/Preferences so it has

<key>orientation</key>
<string>top</string>

Or get TinkerTool, which might be easier, but still can't do all the things you can do in the CLI

OverclockedHomoSapien · Nov 28, 2001, 02:26 AM

LOL, if Steve Jobs ever found out somebody hacked a second dock into OS X, he would probably have a heart attack! hehe...that guy is such a control Nazi.

I've been sending OS X feedback in suggesting multiple docks ever since the public beta. I think it would rock to organize icons by type into seperate docks...unfortunately Apple doesn't agree.

But wouldn't it be a great option? Apple could make it an "advanced" or "pro" option, bury it deep within the preferences, and that way newbies wouldn't get scared of having two docks (although I think the only person it would scare is Steve Jobs. Sometimes I think that guy is a little bit slow, and that's why he's such a control freak...but I digress).

So yeah, multiple docks would rule. Keep sending in that feedback.

kbbaucom · Nov 28, 2001, 04:16 AM

Ok...since another person wants two docks, I think I will try again to do it. I *know* it can be done. I just have to do a little (read a LOT) of looking through system files. :-/

v0id7 · Nov 28, 2001, 08:23 AM

cool! i bet u could charge 7 bucks for it like windowshade and ppl would pay for shareware that gave u 2 docks...or it could be freeware =)

rgoer · Nov 28, 2001, 09:46 AM

Just to share some of my experience...

I had been looking to launch two docks for a while now, and just recently in the last month I made a few serious efforts to try and figure it out. I duplicated Dock.app (so now I had Dock2.app as well), went to the preferences folder and duplicated com.apple.dock.plist (com.apple.dock2.plist), then went into Dock2.app/Contents/ and edited the info.plist to change all references of com.apple.dock.plist to com.apple.dock2.plist... when that didn't work, I kind of gave up. Maybe you'll have more perseverance than I.

MacGorilla · Nov 28, 2001, 10:47 AM

While two docks would rock, I think multiple workspaces would be even better. I would take two docks in the meantime

kbbaucom · Nov 28, 2001, 11:52 AM

Originally posted by rgoer:
Just to share some of my experience...

I had been looking to launch two docks for a while now, and just recently in the last month I made a few serious efforts to try and figure it out. I duplicated Dock.app (so now I had Dock2.app as well), went to the preferences folder and duplicated com.apple.dock.plist (com.apple.dock2.plist), then went into Dock2.app/Contents/ and edited the info.plist to change all references of com.apple.dock.plist to com.apple.dock2.plist... when that didn't work, I kind of gave up. Maybe you'll have more perseverance than I.

That's what I tried a couple months ago. It works with everything else. I just haven't figured out how to get the Dock to do it.

udecker · Nov 28, 2001, 12:09 PM

If you do a strings command on the actual Dock application (Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock) you'll see that there is a hardcoded com.apple.dock entry.

If you could patch the app to change that little string to com.apple.dock2 or whatever, you could probably make it work.

(This is assuming that each little string has that much bearing.)

-uD