How to kill Dock and Dashboard

[hordur]

Hi all!
just found this really cool app yesterday, so i havent actually started messing about the system just yet.. need some more flesh on the bones before i do that.. :)

i have a question; with this unsupported no-finder-hack, http://www.cocoatech.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=222
does it kill dashboard and dock aswell?

im looking for a finder replacement, only do some file management on my system, and pathfinder is all i want (almost, but darn close :) ).
but i would also like to kill dock and dashboard, dock is just always in the way or pops up when you least expect it, dashboard is just a cool feature, never used..

tryed searching, but probably searched all wrong since no hits would further enlighen me.. :)

also, this finder hack, will affect current user only? so other users on the system will not be affected?

[bill]

The Dock is a tenacious beast - you can keep killing it, and it just keeps coming back. I think the app switcher is part of the Dock, so you actually kill it, you lose that, as well.

Rather than kill the Dock, you could just move it to the top of the screen and hide it. It's still lurking there, just below the menu bar, but at least it's out of the way. You can move it by using TinkerToy, or by entering this command in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation top
If you don't care to use Terminal, you can manually edit ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist. <key>orientation</key><string>top</string>

You can kill Dashboard thusly in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled Boolean YES;killall Dock
And again, if you don't care to use Terminal, just drag the Dashboard app off the Dock. As I understand it, as long as you don't open it, the Dashboard system layer is just there, not doing anything.

[hordur]

sweet :D thanx alot :D

the dock i can live with, just have to minimize it... :(

[R-I-P]

The Dock is a tenacious beast - you can keep killing it, and it just keeps coming back. I think the app switcher is part of the Dock, so you actually kill it, you lose that, as well.

Rather than kill the Dock, you could just move it to the top of the screen and hide it. It's still lurking there, just below the menu bar, but at least it's out of the way. You can move it by using TinkerToy, or by entering this command in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation top
If you don't care to use Terminal, you can manually edit ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist. <key>orientation</key><string>top</string>

You can kill Dashboard thusly in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled Boolean YES;killall Dock
And again, if you don't care to use Terminal, just drag the Dashboard app off the Dock. As I understand it, as long as you don't open it, the Dashboard system layer is just there, not doing anything.

The command for disabling the dashboard doesn't seem to work. I'm presented the following:

2006-01-16 11:32:36.806 defaults[437] Unexpected argument YES; leaving defaults unchanged.

Also, to Neil, can anything be done to the cursor in the terminal as it is almost invisible and makes selecting text not so fun?

[R-I-P]

Ahh. Here is the correct command:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

[bill]

The defaults command appears to be inconsistent in this regard. Sometimes I've had to enter the type (boolean, string, etc) to get it to work, sometimes not.

I just entered defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled yes and it went through without a hitch.

Further edit: it's possible that YES, as opposed to yes, is what made it choke, but I just did this in Terminal, and had no trouble:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled NO;killall Dock
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled YES;killall Dock
I ran the first line because I'd just killed it earlier. Both lines ran without problem. So, apparently on my system anyway, it's fairly case-insensitive.

[daisy55]

DashOnOff is a nifty freeware pref pane that turns the dashboard on and off an the touch of a button...one trick pony, but it does its job well, so that's all that matters to me.

VT or MU should have it.