In last week’s bivouac on our cross-platform exodus from Windows oppression to the promised land of “My First Mac”, we started talking about the Dock, an area of the Mac desktop with functionality combining Windows’ Task Bar and Start menu. This week we’ll delve deeper into the Dock’s duties and disposition.

You’ll remember from last time that you can populate your Dock with applications (you used to call them “programs”) by simply dragging the application’s icon from the Applications folder into the Dock, thusly creating a quick, one-click way to launch the application. If you discover you don’t really use the application that much, you can simply lift the icon from the Dock onto the Desktop, and it will disappear with a “poof” sound and a little cloud of smoke. I recommend that you “poof” out any applications your don’t use a lot, to keep your Dock slim and trim.

There are two icons in the Dock that are immune to “poofing”. They’re on opposite sides, at the ends of the Dock. On the left is what I call the “smiley Mac guy” icon. Clicking on it opens a Finder window, which we know from last time gives us access to everything on our Mac. The other “unpoofable” icon is on the right end of the Dock. It’s your Trash can.

Unlike Microsoft, Apple software designers call it like it is. It’s a Trash can, not a “Recycle Bin”. Come on. To put something into the Trash can, drag it into the Trash icon in the Dock (or, right-click on it and select “Move to Trash”). The Trash icon will change to show a crumpled piece of paper in the can. Whatever you place in the Trash can will stay there until you empty the Trash.

While we’re looking at the Trash icon in the Dock, notice that there is a vertical line next to it. This line has two purposes. If you place your pointer over the line, you’ll see the pointer arrow turn into a little horizontal bar with arrows above and below it. If you click, hold, and drag up, the Dock becomes bigger. Click and drag down and the Dock becomes smaller. This is a quick way to size the Dock, performing the same function as the slider bar in Dock preferences.

The second purpose of the line is to separate applications from documents and folders. You can place often-used documents and folders into the Dock as well, dragging them from their homes and placing them on the right side of the vertical line. The Dock, knowing they’re folders or documents, won’t let you put them on the left side of the line. Remember, as with applications, you’re not moving the original document or folder, you’re just making a shortcut to it.

Let’s say you grab your Applications folder and drag it into the Dock. If you click once on the resulting Dock icon, a Finder window will open displaying the contents of the Applications folder. If you click and hold on the icon, you’ll see a list spring up revealing the contents of that folder. Sure enough, if you move your pointer up to an item on the list, then click and let go, that item will open.

I don’t recommend using the above procedure to create a Start-menu-like application launcher, but you could. Note that once a folder is placed into the Dock, you can drag items into folder’s Dock icon and they will be whisked to wherever the original folder is located. Fast, easy, efficient.

Next time: my guide to keeping your Mac ship-shape and squared away