Dock

The “Dock” is the application launcher found in OS X. Most of tips here I got from this article.

Metallic Gradient Effect on Mouse Over

• Open Terminal
• Execute command line: defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES
• Restart your Dock by executing command line: killall Dock
• Change your Dock folder to Grid View

If you want to disable it, change the value of -boolean YES to -boolean NO.

Reveal Stack of Recent Items

• Open your Terminal
• Execute command line: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile";
• Restart your Dock by using commnad line: killall dock

You can select to view several kind of hidden features here, such as showing Recent Servers.

You can add many more stacks of recent items by executing step 2 many times.

Simply drag the stack out of your Dock to remove the folder.

Make Hidden Applications Less Opaque

• Open your Terminal
• Execute this command line: defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES
• Restart Dock with killall Dock

Try to hide one of your applications and see the effect

If you want to revert back, execute the command line from step 2 again, but now by changing -bool YES to -bool NO.

Split your Dock with Spacer

• Open your Terminal
• Execute command line: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

Repeat as many times as you want for creating several spacers

• Restart your Dock with killall Dock

You can drag around the spacers. And you can also drag it out of your Dock to remove it