Upon Leopard’s launch, some people found the new Stacks feature of the OS X Dock as generally useless. Some simply do not use Stacks at all, others just keep the default Downloads and Documents. Myself, I have taken to using stacks as simple application launchers, useful for grouping together related programs and not forgetting about them¹.

If the video is not too clear, here is my process:

1. Decide where to store a folder for the aliases (shortcuts) to the applications. In my case, it is ~/Documents/Aliases/.
2. Make a subfolder for each ‘launcher’ you would like. In the example, I am adding a Development launcher.
3. Make shortcuts to all the applications you would like in the launcher. In this example, I am adding them through Quicksilver, though you may drag them directly while holding down option + command (You will see the cursor turn into the Alias icon).
4. Drag the folder to the Dock, as seen in the video. You can secondary-click and select in which way to view the content, I personally prefer the Grid view for launchers.
5. You can later add more aliases to the folder and they will be reflected in real-time in your Dock launcher. I have found that sometimes the icon is not properly shown for these applications. You can drag and re-add the folder (tedious and unpleasant) or restart the Dock. The easiest way for me is using DashQuit (which has some other features as well) though you may have other applications that do the same thing.

That wraps it up. Unfortunately, there are some issues with the UI for the Stacks, especially if, like me, you like your Dock to grow and shrink depending on which application you are hovering over. However, this is the more useful thing I have been able to do with the feature, so I thought I would share.

1. As ridiculous as that may sound, it has happened before, so a reminder may be useful [↩]