Dock Shortcut

Dock Shortcut is a handy little tool that brings some cool features from other desktop systems to macOS. You know how on Windows or Linux, you can quickly launch apps with a hotkey? Well, Apple usually likes to stick to its own style, but Dock Shortcut changes that!

Quick Access to Your Favorite Apps

With Dock Shortcut, you can easily launch or switch between your applications in the Dock just by using a hotkey. It’s super simple! Just press the Option key (that’s the default) and then hit one of the number keys from 1 to 9 based on where your app is sitting in the Dock.

Customize Your Shortcuts

If you want, you can also use other modifier keys like Cmd, Control, or Shift. You can pick your favorite one right from the app's preferences in the menu bar. Plus, once you've got everything set up just how you like it, feel free to hide that menu bar icon if it’s cluttering things up!

How Does It Work?

Using Dock Shortcut is easy-peasy! When you press the chosen modifier and then hit the number for an app’s spot in the Dock, it works like magic. If that app is already open, it pops right up front for you. If it's closed? No problem! It'll open up for you.

A Feature That Feels Right at Home

This feature feels like something Apple should've included in macOS from day one! It's such a quick way to pull up your favorite apps without messing around too much. Plus, it's actually faster than using Cmd+Tab when you're juggling more than two apps.

A Few Tips and Tricks

If you'd rather not have Finder (which always sits first in your Dock) interfere with things, you can set it so this app ignores Finder entirely. Just keep in mind—it might get a bit tricky figuring out which number corresponds to which app until you get used to it!

A Little Wish List

It would be awesome if there was a little number next to each Dock icon when you're holding down that modifier key! That way, you'd easily see which hotkey matches each app. But hey, I guess that's something for future updates!

The Bottom Line: Why You Should Try It Out

Dive into Dock Shortcut. It brings some great features from Windows and Linux straight into macOS. It's easy to set up and use—it’s written completely in Swift—and best of all? It's free and open-source!