How do I place the dock on the left of the middle display in a three display system?

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Level 1

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How do I place the dock on the left of the middle display in a three display system?

I have recently purchased a third display for my Mac Pro System. I would like to keep the dock on left side of my primary (center) display. Unfortunately, when I set dock position to "left" the dock goes all the way over to the far left of the display on the left, which is not ideal. Similarly, if I set dock position to "right" it goes all the way over the right side of the display on the right.

My temporary fix is to set dock position to "bottom" and it sits on the bottom of my primary (center) display.

Is there a way to put the dock on the left side of the center display?

Thanks in advance!

Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 15, 2012 2:27 PM

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Answer 1

Kujako

Level 2

270 points

Jan 15, 2012 2:44 PM in response to ecnemergut

Open System Preferences. Select Displays. There will be a white bar at the top of one of the three boxes representing your displays. Drag this white bar into the display you want the menu bar and launcher to be in.

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Answer 2

ecnemergut Author

Level 1

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Jan 15, 2012 3:29 PM in response to Kujako

Yeah - I tried this. Unfortunately, it seems the position of the dock is independent from the position of the menu bar (the "white bar"). That is to say, the white bar is on top of the middle display, but when I set dock position to "left" the dock goes all the way over to the far left of the display on the left... Sorry!

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Answer 3

Jan 15, 2012 3:38 PM in response to ecnemergut

I wrestled with that a while ago, did some experiments, and came up with this definition:

The Dock will be displayed on the specified edge of the Main (MenuBar) Display EXCEPT when a secondary display extends that edge.

In the previous discussion, the display that extended the desktop and caused the trouble was used in a fixed way, and the poster did not often drag things to it or split windows across the screens there. (As you seem to be doing.)

In that case, you can LIE to the arrange pane, and tell it the left display is up and to the left, or down and to the left, and it will no longer properly extend that edge of the main display.Then the Dock will go back to the left edge of the main display. The side effect is that you will not be able to drag things to the left display in a straight line.

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Answer 4

ecnemergut Author

Level 1

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Jan 15, 2012 3:49 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Bummer...Oh well!

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Answer 5

Jan 15, 2012 5:11 PM in response to ecnemergut

So what did you decide to do ??

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