Apple Mac OS X tips and tweaks

Date: 2nd August 2011

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OS X Lion: New Dock and language settings

There are lots of little changes in OS X Lion and one that is a bit strange is an extra configuration setting for the Dock. When applications are running a white light is displayed below the item in the Dock and it is a useful indicator that you have something running. You can now turn off this indicator and you'll never know what's open!

It's hard to think why you might want this, but if you do, go to System Preferences and click Dock. At the bottom is Show indicator lights for open applications. Just clear the tickbox. I know that open apps add an icon to the Dock, but bundled apps are already in the Dock so you won't know they are running. Why?

Slightly more useful are the two new options in System Preferences, Language & Text, on the Text tab. There is now an option to enable or disable symbol and text substitution and automatic spelling correction. Applications can override these and provide their own facilities, so this is just for text entry provided by the system.

If you've ever had problems typing (c) and it keeps getting changed to a copyright symbol, or the spell checker changing something you've typed, now you can turn these features off. It's not a major change, but it's nice having the option.

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