Leopard: Spring Loaded Dock

Contributor Icon Contributed by davak Date Icon October 16, 2007  
Tag Icon Tagged: Mac OS X Leopard

In OS X 10.5, if you drag an file over an application icon and hit the space bar, the app will open for you. This makes drag-and-drop super easy. Here are a few screenshots to show how easy it is to use Leopard’s Spring Loaded Dock.


One of the things I always liked about XP/Vista was if you hovered over the taskbar, the program would open automatically. With Leopard, OS X adds this same functionality.

For example, if you want to drop a file from your desktop onto a program, just do the following. I’ll be dragging a file into cyberduck (ftp) as an example.

1. Click on the file and drag it over the the appropriate program.

2. When hovering over the application’s icon, hit the Space bar. Do not let go of the pressure held on the mouse/trackpad.

3. The app will open automatically while you still have a hold on the file. Drop the file into the open application.

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  • Anonymous
    Nice tips. If I do remembered correctly, since OSX 10.3 i been dropping text documents on TextEdit icon on the Dock and it will launch TextEdit and the file is opened.
  • davak
    You are exactly right. You've been able to drop files onto icons on the dock for a while now. However, you were limited on what would happen. Now you can actually place the information where you want it.

    In the ftp example I gave, you can drop the file in a particular folder. In text edit you could drop a clipping in an exact position. etc...

    Davak
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