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Comment by reader9274 | Hacker News Reader

We all know the correct dock location is LEFT, because there's fewer mouse movements to reach the dock apps and the close/minimize buttons of a window when using a mouse. No further arguments will be heard on this topic (:

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the original default location in NeXTstep is on the right. i don't agree with the mouse argument because i don't need to constantly go there to access apps. i mean starting/switching apps is not the main activity on the computer. i want the dock visible but out of the way.

that said, reading the linked article it appears that the dock in OSX is not just a reskinned version of the NeXTstep dock, but written from scratch on MacOS9, and only then ported to OSX afterwards. i find that surprising.

either way, in MacOS, if I have an external monitor, choosing left or right(depending on the placement of the monitor) will mean I have go across my entire desktop to reach the dock. I can't have it on the edge of where the desktops are adjacent.

The correct dock location is hidden. What is this 'mouse' device that you refer to multiple times ? ;)

I like RIGHT, but we can all agree that BOTTOM is the worst, because it shortens your screen by about 15%!

That's why I think GNOME made the right decision by hiding it.

Gnomes technically does not have a dock, though.

How is it not a dock? Yeah, you need to access it through the overview, but it still behaves like a dock.

You gotta auto hide dock no matter what side it goes or you’re giving up too much screen space. You know it’s there anyways, and it reappears immediately when you send your mouse to it. So the only thing it really tells you is what apps are running in the background, which honestly doesn’t justify taking up screen space on a laptop.

Plus, spotlight (or alternatives like Alfred/Raycast) are more convenient app launchers anyways. And switching apps is a bit better via cmd-tab, or better yet, raycast shortcuts or rcmd.

No, we can't agree about that. I use sides for e.g. browser tabs or scroll bars or just plain window resizing etc, so if I had dock on the side then and extra mouse movement could trigger the dock instead of the desired UI element

> because it shortens your screen by about 15%!

it doesn't because it's hidden

Unfortunately, if you use a two-monitor setup, you cannot have the dock on the left of the right-hand-side monitor, or vice versa.

Left, hidden, as small as possible, with active app indicators turned off and nothing pinned to it. I'd get rid of it entirely if I could.

(Alfred, cmd+tab, cmd+` (and occasionally Exposé) are all I use to open and switch apps outside of the terminal.)

I used a command to make it always hidden, and I just reach it via Mission Control, been liking this setup a lot especially since i use Mission control extensivley via the trackpad

If you’re using the Dock in the first place, which you really shouldn’t because it’s a waste of screen space, and Exposé, Spotlight, and a decent Cmd+Tab replacement makes for a more better app/window management paradigm.

Obviously it should be on the left, because that's where it is on NEXTSTEP.

Deep down there it probably extends NSDock or something like that.

Dock on the left of primary display, only there so I can see notification badges on Slack / email / calendar, etc.

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