Mavericks Dock: Change color

Maybe you can just remove /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app (or maybe better make a backup of that before removing it) and then restart your system. Note though, that I don't know what will happen, so don't hold me responsible if your system doesn't work anymore afterwards :-) ...and don't forget to make a backup! :-)

Injecting here with my 2 cents for Apple just in case Apple reads this.

Apple give us some choice and stop assuming we will eat it up. Stop forcing your miminalist colour scheme on us. Give us an option to revert to the old colour on the dock so we don't waste hours/days/weeks trying to fiind a solution for something that should have been left alone. Give us back proper lines in our Calendar and add lines and the old yellow in Notes for easier reading, hence there is less glare. Don't make changes to the UI for the sake of a change. Making an app work smoothly is good change. Give us some CHOICE when you make a major change like what you did with the dock. Seriously, is that asking too much? Was it soooo important to change the dock colour? My eyes are hurting.

Please, this is a theread for help the users and not for KillAll 😠

I'm frustrated with the Mavericks dock as I could not see if the app was "on". I used in terminal--defaults write com.apple.dock hide-mirror -bool true;killall Dock

Now I don't see any marker that my app is active on the dock. Anyway to reverse that terminal command to go back to the original dock in Mavericks? Thanks.

To jrebergen: Thanks for the black triangle and bar files. Replacing them, however, had no effect.

I guess you did restart? And the 2 files only work for the bottom dock. Perhaps it has something to do with the screen resolution? There are also 2 files named 'small'. Maybe you can open those 2 and design something for you're own. Don't forget to make a copy of the original files!

It's got to work, it's straight forward...

Check my post on page 5!

Thanks, but I use the dock on the right on my MacBook Air 13 inch due to space. May I will have to go back to the bottom.

@Wheezemd; check the other 'indicator_' files. The ones that are called 'side' are the ones that you need for a dock left or right. My files only replace the 'indicator_medium'. The files are transparent png's, so easily edited in Photoshop or any other 'pixel' program.

Hi. Thanks for taking the time. Good of you. Yes, restarted, dock's at the bottom. No obvious reason why this shouldn't have worked. I tried clearing system caches, but no love. Mavericks dock remains something of a mystery, and the failure of the replace indicator files to appear as expected seems further evidence of that.

korkyk wrote:

I have sent my complaints to Apple also.

In the meantime, I did find this terminal command that might be of use to some. It actually turns the dock transparent rather than white. Not a perfect solution by any stretch, but it's a little bit of a help.

defaults write com.apple.dock hide-mirror -bool true;killall Dock

This Terminal command above has helped me with my right-side Dock; I just opened Terminal and pasted the above in using Command-V. I also changed my screen Desktop color to a darker shade of green. Now I can see which apps are open better and most icons seem more visible.

But I've also filed a complaint with Apple. A dark background for the Dock, as I had in OS X 10.8 makes icons far easier to see and also much easier to see which apps are open. Other than the Dock issue of this and other threads, Mavericks seems to be working flawlessly on my 13" MacBook Air (latest model).

Kudos to this forum and those who provide tips for us 🙂

The side dock is rendered on at least 3 seperate layers; one of them is a white blurring layer at approximately 60-70% transparency, and a white layer at about 40-50% transparencty (I toyed around in Photoshop and re-built the dock from scratch).

That command removes the blurring layer but leaves the other layers (on the side dock at least). Perhaps whoever discovered that command (or anyone familiar with them) could dig around and figure out the other layers' rendering commands? If so I'm fairly certain the side dock could literally be reduced to just the outline, or possibly just nothing at all.

At the tisk of sounding like a broken record - I HATE the new dock 😠. And I have complained to Apple here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

G369 wrote:

defaults write com.apple.dock hide-mirror -bool true;killall Dock

This command made it a tad bit better. Not a solution, but kudos to whoever discovered it. I just copy pasted this and it made the dock a bit more transparent. As "Sryker295" stated, this removes one of the layers of white.

i agree with both your statements.

it's one of the better updates for long as far as the quality is concerned.

almost no bugs, at least no basic ones i've come acrosse yet, not to forget the energy + memory saving infrastructure which i find a big improvement after all.

unfortunately with every new os-version they unnecessarily change things ( take aways features, colors etc. ) for no good reason.

this makes me think back with regret to when i could make my mac look and work as to my nees and my liking and when the basics where just good.

the thing with the dock i must say i agree 100%, it produces negative energy because i distaste that look.

it just does not fit my eyes ( i'm a designer ) and the lack of customizability makes me upset even.

i'm grown up and can decide for myself how i want things to look and to work, at least within a certain basic range like dark or light, big or small,

with lines or without lines ( calendar ) etc.

however with each os-update there was a loss of nice features and the new tag function for example is new only in the way, that i can now search for all red files or all blue files, but therefore it takes space away in the finder so that i have less space to name the files pervectly and still see the whole name in column view and/or on the desktop for example.

and this just because there MUST be a color dot instead of a colored text background like before or even better a colored text field as a long time ago.

however, generally the os is good, the best by far still and still improving.

i just would appreciate a bit more choice in theming and organizing as well as paying more attention to the capabilites instead of the show effects.

albeit this update did quite a lot under the hood so this time i can say it was ok so far.

just follow the old proven rules, never change a winning team and don't change or take away things which work and are widely accepted and used.

this is the old conflict between programmers and designers, and the bigger a thing gets ( more complexity ) the more power the programmers

take over the desingers. you can find this most obviously in car design, which has even caused manufacturers or at least models to

desapear from the market entirely. just look how many bmw models 1996-1999 are still running and then look at how many 2000-2003 models you

see "per year" thanks to mr. bangle :-)

last but not least i would prefer to pay for my working tools but having a say instead of free stuff on a take it or leave it basis.

regards

I am also a user who has the Dock on the side. It is really the only rational placement of the Dock with a 13" laptop in my view.

Clearly no one gave this much thought at Apple. I wonder if this is the future of post-Jobs Apple - not sweatting the details...