Feature Request: Dock location protection

[Clifford-Yen]

Hi @waydabber,

It's totally fine if this request can't be achieved since it might be the macOS limitation, but one thing that always annoys me is that whenever I unlock my MacBook, the dock always goes back to my MacBook's screen instead of the external one which I set to be the main screen.

Here are the settings: I am using a MacBook Air M1 model. I connected it to a Dell S2722QC monitor with a USB-C cable. The monitor is on top of my MacBook, center-aligned. My preferred dock location is at the bottom of the screen (and that's where the problem comes from, I guess). I am on macOS Sonoma 14.7 and BetterDisplay Pro 3.1.2.

The way I have to do every time I unlock my MacBook is to (1) move my dock to the external monitor by moving my cursor to the bottom (on the side. Otherwise the cursor will go to the MacBook's screen) of the main screen (the external monitor) for a second and (2) hide-unhide the dock by pressing cmd+option+D to claim the dock space on my MacBook's screen. If I don't do (2), windows on my MacBook's screen can't be extended to the dock space when maximizing them even if I have already moved the dock to another screen.

I believe this is not BetterDisplay's issue, but it would be fantastic if BetterDisplay could "lock" the dock to the main screen so that I don't have to do what I mentioned above multiple times a day. Thank you!

[waydabber]

Hmm. I think something is not right, the dock should be wherever you left it before sleep (or on the main screen by default). I use a similar setup often (external display as main with internal display open). Are you using any 3rd party window management app that might interfere?

[Clifford-Yen]

Hmm the only thing I can think of is BetterTouchTool, which I used to do some window snapping, but it shouldn't be activated whenever I wake my MacBook. Another thing I can think of is Bartender since it manipulates the menu bar, which I recently replaced with Ice, but that doesn't change the issue.

So you never have this issue even though you use a similar setup? May I know whether you also place your dock at the bottom? And the external monitor is also on top of the internal display?

[waydabber]

Never. Try first with a vanilla setup (disabling all these apps) and see which one interferes first. If the issue happens without any apps, you can try checking with a new user or try resetting various config files (like windowserver display layout configuration etc).

[Clifford-Yen]

That's surprising. I saw so many people complaining the same thing on the internet (for example). So I disabled all these apps (even BetterDisplay) but it's still the same. I believe this is a kind of macOS bug. There are only two ways I can keep the Dock on my external monitor (main display):

• Place the Dock to the left or the right, or
• Place the external display to the left or the right of the internal display (just not on top of the internal display)

Any idea? I am also curious why you are not affected. It happens to me every time I unlock my MacBook (no matter if it's locked with a hot corner shortcut, the power button, or it turns off the screen after the preset idle time). And it's also independent of the external monitor. The same issue happens to other external monitors as long as the setup is the same (the external monitor is on top of the internal display and the Dock is set to the bottom).

[waydabber]

Oh, I see. It might be an issue with top-bottom layout. I use a left-right arrangement.

[Clifford-Yen]

Ah, that's why. So yeah if BetterDisplay can have this feature to "fix" the Dock location, that will be great. (Although I recognize this issue should be addressed by Apple.) I think many people (including me) would appreciate it. This would be a qualify of life improvement.

[waydabber]

Honestly I am not sure I know how to do that. I certainly found no public API to do that - one would probably need to interact with Dock or windowserver directly using alternate means. This is I think intended to be a feature in macOS, whenever you move displays around, in a top-bottom arrangement the dock will always move to the bottom screen - just experimented with it a bit. Tried fooling it by moving things around but did not really seem to work. I'd need more research into the topic.

Did you check yabai - maybe it has some feature regarding this? I am not sure how much I want to move BetterDisplay into the window manager augment genre as the app is already a bit feature-bloated according to some. :)