You’ve got a snazzy desktop picture, and a killer GeekTool stats/info display. But something is missing. Your dock just doesn’t jive with everything you’ve got setup. Not even setting the dock up to auto hide will please you. I was in that boat a few weeks ago, and now Mathew, the proud owner of a brand new MacBook is as well. Matt wrote me a quick email today asking for assistance.
I was wondering whether you’d ever come across a way to get the dock background to disappear/become transparent? I can’t seem to find an option anywhere and you seem to be the kinda guy who’d know such things!
Ask and you shall receive Matt :) I use an application created by Unsanity called ClearDock. ClearDock is free, easy, and available as a universal binary. Once ClearDock is installed it’s somewhat hidden. You can find it in the System Preferences and then under Application Enhancer.
At first glance you’ll notice that there are a few options that you can set. If all you care about is a transparent dock background then uncheck the Re-Color The Dock Background check box. That will give you a nice transparent dock like this screenshot. The other features that ClearDock offers are changing the color of the dock’s background, the dock’s border, and the color of the running application’s triangles. With a hint of creativity you can come up with a wild scheme like this :)
Hope this helped Matt!
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Thanks Nick! This is perfect.. Thanks for making my shineh new MacBook even better :)
Glad you’re enjoying your new MacBook. If you have any more questions feel free fire me an email :)
Thats really kind of you.. but be wary of switchers with questions! ;)
I really like that change, definitely an improvement.
PS the dock should be on the left side, not the bottom, I find it is less likely to get in my way on the side.
For some reason I just can’t get used to seeing my dock on either the left or right side of the screen. I’ve been thinking about not using the dock at all and relying on quicksilver, but I haven’t got up the nerve to take the plunge :)
I like the dock on the side.
The only problem I had with it is that if you’re using Parallels in OS Window mode and the dock is on the side (or hidden) then the bottom and top 20 pixels or so disappear outside the margins of the screen.
That’s a major pain, to say the least, meaning you can’t move it or access any part of the VM that sits in that area (eg. the windows start menu).
with the 24″ screen on this imac, i really dont have a shortage of space, but if I put the dock on the bottom I find I click on it by accident. Since I limit myself to a single row of icons on the right side, the dock makes a nice balance on the left side :)
I suppose that on my 15″ MacBook Pro it would make more sense to put the dock along the left side. However I’ve got it loaded with GeekTool stuff that I like to look at and Adium.
been using this for a while and love it…
HI NICK YOUNG I LOVE THE CLEER DOCK BUT I HAVE A RUBISH BACKGROUND CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE I CAN GET THAT ONE (WHAT LOOKS LIKE A RAINBOW,SUN,MOON AND TREE) I WOULD BE EXTREMELY GRATEFULL
EMAIL ME “crompton_rufc@hotmail.co.uk”
or pm,comment on my youtube paige thanx a lot!
where did you get your bg of the silhouettes?
yeaahhh where did the silhouette background come from? it’s like the coolest thing i’ve ever seen.
I made it by taking a picture of myself sitting on the floor with my MBP. I then masked myself in photoshop and turned it into a silhouette. Then I used the apple logo as a brush and set the brush to jitter angles, color, and a few other variables.
I’m glad that you like it :)