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Re: Adding an icon to the dock
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Re: Adding an icon to the dock


  • Subject: Re: Adding an icon to the dock
  • From: Colin Cornaby <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 13:17:05 -0700

I thought about this for a bit on the train last night, so I've got my thoughts all assembled on this matter. :)

I work in IT in a very large ™ Macintosh organization, so I usually get to see firsthand all the issues that users run into. By far, the biggest issue I run into is that users use the Dock as a crutch. Back when we ran OS 9, users were forced to understand that the applications folder is where applications live. But with OS X, users seem to have no idea that the applications folder is even there. Quite simply, if the application isn't on the dock, it doesn't exist to the user. I'll often install a new application on a large number of machines, and if I forget to put it onto the dock, I'll immediately get feedback that the application was never installed at all, simply because the user can't find it on the dock.

(It would be great though if Apple included a little gnome with every Mac that would pop out when the user first started up the machine and explained the concept of the applications folder. Given how large of an organization we have, it's not realistic for us to sit every user down and teach them how to use the applications folder, and then teach them again a week later when they forget.)

I myself hate when things add themselves to the dock. If anything adds itself to the dock without asking me, it gets immediately removed from my machine. I've actually run into this once before. The HP Deskjet drivers add a little docklet to the dock automatically, and when I removed it, they actually had a script that on login would put it back in. Needless to say the Deskjet drivers never got installed on my machine ever again.

But given the mentality of novice users that I've mentioned above, I can perfectly understand an installer asking if it should add items to the Dock, as long as by default it is set to not add itself to the Dock, and obviously it has to ask first.

With regards to Apple officially supporting the behavior... The system administration guides that Apple has published describe how to programatically add items to the Dock, and they basically consist of what I wrote before. Just edit the com.apple.dock.plist file, and restart the Dock. Given that this technique is not given by Apple in a developer context, it's probably not guaranteed to work in all versions of OS X.

On Nov 2, 2007, at 10:17 PM, Mark Munz wrote:

More importantly though is that even *if* iWork does it, that does not
make it right for you, nor does it make it user friendly. Apple can
get away with this, but most other folks can't.

While placing the icons on the dock may seem acceptable from a Windows
perspective, it is very non-Mac and as a user, it ticks me off that a
program would do something like that.

It's easy enough for users to put the app in their dock if they feel
it is important enough. But IMHO, it is arrogant for a company to
think it deserves to insert its icons into my dock automatically. It
also would make me suspect that the given program is likely to break
other guidelines. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth hearing about
it.


On 11/2/07, Colin Cornaby <email@hidden> wrote:
I see what you mean. For some reason I thought you somehow meant you
wanted to spawn another app icon or something.

As the other poster mentioned, messing with the plist is the easiest
way to do this. If you just generate a uuid, set the URL of the new
item, and set the tile type you should be fine. Then restart the Dock.


As the other poster said, the docks plist format is not guaranteed to
stay the same, so writing the least information possible is the best
way to reduce the possibility of breakage.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 2, 2007, at 6:31 PM, Steve Israelson <email@hidden> wrote:

I am inclined to tell my client "No", in fact that is my current
answer.
If you just install iWork, you will know how it, well, works.

On 2-Nov-07, at 6:27 PM, Colin Cornaby wrote:

Could you be a little more specific? I've never seen either
application do this.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 2, 2007, at 6:00 PM, Steve Israelson <email@hidden>
wrote:

iWork does it, and so does Microsoft.

On 2-Nov-07, at 5:27 PM, John Stiles wrote:

Basically, you don't. The dock is the user's domain. If you could
programatically add icons to the dock, everyone would do it, and
your average user's dock would be a huge mess.


Steve Israelson wrote:
How do I add my application's icon to the doc programatically?

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Mark Munz
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  • Follow-Ups:
    • [Moderator] Please take this to another forum - Re: Adding an icon to the dock
      • From: Scott Anguish <email@hidden>
References: 
 >Adding an icon to the dock (From: Steve Israelson <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Adding an icon to the dock (From: John Stiles <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Adding an icon to the dock (From: Steve Israelson <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Adding an icon to the dock (From: Colin Cornaby <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Adding an icon to the dock (From: Steve Israelson <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Adding an icon to the dock (From: Colin Cornaby <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Adding an icon to the dock (From: "Mark Munz" <email@hidden>)

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