Dock & Menu Bar (System Preferences)

Dock Preferences in System Preferences

The Dock & Menu Bar System Preferences pane originally appeared as the Dock pane with first release of Mac OS X. Options related to the Dock can be set in this panel.

Various options

• Dock Size: This option sets the size, relative to the screen's edges, that the Dock will be.
  

Hint: If a Dock is too big and has already filled the screen, but its size has not reached the maximum "Large" setting, then dragging the slider to "Large" will let the Dock grow as more items are thrown away from it.

• Magnification: This option turns magnification on or off and shows how magnified the icons will appear.
• Position on screen: This option was added in Mac OS X 10.1 (previously, the Dock took permanent residence at the bottom of the screen.) These radio buttons allow you to dock (quite literally) the Dock at the left, right or bottom sides of the screen. Docking it at the top, just below the menu bar, is impossible unless attempted with a third-party add-on, TinkerTool.
• Minimise using: This option was added beginning as of Mac OS X 10.1 "Puma". The user can choose between a more glitzy Genie Effect and a faster Scale Effect.
• Animate opening applications: Application programs can actually bounce inside the Dock when they're launched (until they are fully loaded). This can be switched on or off by means of this check box.
• Automatically hide and show the Dock: This option turns Dock hiding on or off. The Dock can be made to appear only when the mouse nears the region where the Dock usually is (or has been set to be); otherwise, the Dock could be set to disappear from view.