Hey guys, Chris here.
For the time being, my personal & work-from-home laptop is also my main recording and post-production computer for the podcast. Since this is my do-everything system, my desktop and my application dock get pretty crowded and busy.
This computer is a 2nd(?) generation MacBook with an intel processor running Mac OS/X 10.6, aka “Snow Leopard”. Being a Mac, you have to think differently about organizing your apps than you might if you were using a Windows system; there is no Start menu/button.
Rather than continue crowding my dock with audio and video production app icons, I decided I would actually take them all out of the dock and move them to a fly-out menu on the ride side of the dock, using the alias metaphor. The folders and fly-outs on the right side of the dock are a fairly recent addition to Mac OS/X (I believe) and it becomes a very powerful mechanism for grouping and organizing.
Quick note: Application icons in Mac OS/X are actually representative of the application folder on disc, and are generally not alias or shortcut icons. Because of this, you want to be very careful about just dragging application icons around. You might end up dragging hundreds of megs of application files to a different location, and you run the risk of making the application no longer run. The good news is, most of the time if you do accidentally move an app icon to a location other than the Applications folder, you haven’t really broken anything. Dragging it back is a non-issue.
So, without further ado… adeau… adieu… without further delay, here are the steps and the results of those efforts.
Step 1 - Navigate to your Applications folder (hit Shift-Apple-A)
Step 2 - create a new folder to hold your alias icons. I called mine "AV Processing". Any name will suffice; make it descriptive.
Step 3 - Create alias icons for your apps. Single click the app and press Apple-L to create the alias. This is akin to a "shortcut" in Windows.
Step 4 - I like to remove the word "alias" from the end of the new alias icon's caption. The small arrow on the icon indicates it's an alias. Edit the name of the alias icon to your choosing.
Step 5 - Drag the new alias icon into your new folder. Repeat this for each application you want to include in the fly-out folder on the dock.
Step 6 - When you've added all the alias icons you wish to the folder, then drag the folder to the right side of the dock. Be sure that the folder lands on the dock, and to the right of the control zone of the dock.
Step 7 - The new folder will display in the dock bar usually using the icon from the first app found in the folder by default. The fly-out is now ready to use.
Step 8 - Click the new icon and the contents will be displayed in a clickable flyout. Settings can be tuned to alter how the icons are displayed.
