Move Dock Finder Icon

Is there any way to do this without messing with the system too much?

I guess that depends on what you mean by "too much."
You can open up your Hard Drive/System/Library/CoreServices/ and Drag the Finder app to where you want. You will then have two finder icons. The one you drag will not have some of the functionality of the original one, though.

You really use the Finder that much?

I thought about that a little after posting. I actually use Quicksilver, but it's capabilities are slowly breaking as it has been out of development for a couple of years.

I just cmd-tab to the Finder for the most part. I do drag and drop via the Dock Finder icon, using the spring-loaded folders (Finder Preferences, General). I drag stuff to the appropriate folder starting point in the Dock and let spring-loaded folders open up the path to where I want to go. There is a secret option to make the Dock icons always spring open instead of needing the spacebar.

defaults write com.apple.dock "enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items" 1

But, for the most part, I do not use the Finder to get to those things. I have the primary folders (HD, Home, Documents, Applications, Utilities) in my dock in list view and I access stuff that way. I have very few applications in my Dock as I use Quicksilver or the folder links in the Dock to launch apps. You can use spotlight in the same way. Cmd-Space, type first few characters of app, when it shows up highlighted in the spotlight menu, hit return. Kind of a pain with Microsoft apps. Quicksilver, however, will remember key shortcuts like du for Disk Utility, am for Activity Monitor, w for Word, etc.

Kevin Horn wrote:
I want to move the Finder icon on the Dock.

no, there isn't. Finder icon is a special icon and its position is hard coded in the dock and can not be changed.

This is because I have my Dock on the left side so the Finder is way at the top. I prefer apps I use a lot have their icons down in the middle of the Dock.

Is there any way to do this without messing with the system too much?

Kevin

{quote}Cmd-Space, type first few characters of app, when it shows up highlighted in the spotlight menu, hit return. Kind of a pain with Microsoft apps.{quote}

Why is there additional pain with Microsoft apps?

Now that you ask, I have to wonder why I try to type 'Microsoft Word.' 'Word' or 'Excel' works just fine.
I had never considered just typing the name without 'Microsoft.'

OT: Why do you suppose Microsoft is so insecure that they have to put their name in the program name? There certainly aren't any other 'Words' out there in the market place that anyone would be confused.
Perhaps you can't trademark the just the word 'Word.'

{quote}OT: Why do you suppose Microsoft is so insecure that they have to put their name in the program name?{quote}

I really don't have an answer for that but other vendors do it as well - Adobe, Google, and HP are a few. Maybe some marketing guru will clue us in.

Cmd-space is the default shortcut for Spotlight.