Here are some polls intended to help kick off a discussion of how folks use their Docks. Yes, I know that I've omitted any questions regarding use of the right side of the Dock, probably because I use mine very little, so don't know what questions (RE Stacks, etc.) might be relevant.

Note that the polls deal only with quantifiable aspects of Dock use. Please feel free to expound on how you keep your Dock organized, whether you think the Dock should be deep-sixed, or any other subjective issues that interest you.

I don't use my Dock at all.

It's there, but it's all but invisible.

My dock has the applications that I most frequently use. Mostly, similar apps are located next to each other (for example, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Bridge, or MS Word and MS Entourage). I opt to hide the dock so I can have maximum screen area. BTW, you might want to add a poll to see how many users hide the dock vs. have it constantly showing.

I store my Applications folder at the right side of the dock. When I need an app that is not already in the dock, it's a lot faster to access it that way rather than going to the hard drive and clicking Applications (or using the Go menu, for that matter). It also makes it easier to install applications that don't have an installer or don't have an alias to Applications in their window; I simply drag the application to the dock Applications folder.

In addition, I keep three frequently used folders at the right side so that I can quickly add files to them.

Does that mean you never open files via drag and drop? Or do you accomplish drag and drop in some other way...?

I also group similar types of apps and have my Applications folder and often-used folders (usually 2, but adding others temporarily as needed).

There's 3D?

ryck

3D v. 2D Dock comparison.

Here's a comparison which shows the difference a bit more vivdly.

Other than unpkg, which demands d&d, I open pretty much everything with hot-keys, deal with command-O and double-click when necessary, and use QuickLook to avoid all of the above when possible; I'm kinda trackpadphobic/keyboardcentric.

(I was trying to make the point that it would be interesting to see the response to a "No Dock!" option in your survey.)

169 apps at the moment...

Gee, only 2 new Dockworthy apps in three quarters of a year?!

I guess the Touch is siphoning off excess capacity.

I use the Dock primarily as an application launcher and switch between apps and/or windows using Exposé unless the app is hidden or the window minimized. In any case the number of apps on my Dock is misleading because one of those is Overflow an application and document launcher that I currently have configured with 9 categories and up to 20 apps/files in each.

Only those apps I use several times each and every day such as Mail, Safari, iCal, AddressBook, Parallels, Overflow and a few others are on the Dock itself, but of the 234 apps and utilities on my system, all but a relatively small number of very seldom/never used ones are accessible and launched through the Dock and Overflow.

Stacks vastly enhanced the Dock's utility for me. Since 10.5 introduced them, i always have these four Stacks on the bottom of my (right-side) Dock:

• frequent folders
• frequent apps
• frequent files
• frequent searches

They are all configured thusly: "Display as folder (so i can use a distinctive icon to quickly identify the stack)" and "View content as grid" (for nice big icons to click or easily navigate via letter or arrow keys)"

Sure, i use Spark (and FastScripts) for shortcut keys to many things... but there are only a limited number of letters (and numbers) to use for ctrl-shift-shortcut launching. (That's probably why so many loved Quicksilver -- e.g., type ps for PhotoShop). But Stacks really made the Dock a more useful "launcher" (i.e., including dozens of frequent folders, docs and searches) for my money.

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BTW... for anyone wanting to try that, here's my approach:
While the "searches" stack is simply made by dropping the ~/Library/Saved Searches folder on the dock... the folders, apps and docs stacks are all synthesized by creating folders full of aliases (a la Launcher from System 7.5). Here's an abbreviated peek into the hierarchy:


The names ending with / are folders (so it's one folder there with three subfolders). The names ending with @ are aliases (actually i use Unix symlinks to save tons of space, but they don't "self-heal" like Finder aliases do). The "myStacks" parent folder could go anywhere (though somewhere in the home folder is advisable). We could even hide it by starting its name with a period.

Finally, give each of the three "links_to_*" subfolders a distinctive icon and drag them to the dock (individually). Populate with aliases as needed.

I've probably trashed a few from there as they broke under OS upgrades.

My Dock is modified using Leopard Transparent Dock.

The right side holds customized templates for AppleWorks and Pages and frequently used folders which contain a picture named, for example, 0 Rainbow Apple.jpg.