The Tips - Mac Kung Fu - page 142

To make the change, open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Appli-
cations list, and then in the list of applications double-click Terminal within
the UTILITIES folder), and type the following, making sure to type the lines
exactly as printed. Because of page width limitations, the first command,
which should be typed on one line, is split into two. Just continue typing the
text on the second line after the first.
SQLITE3 ~/LIBRARY/APPLICATION\ SUPPORT/DOCK/*.DB "DELETE FROM APPS; DELETE
FROM GROUPS WHERE TITLE<>''; DELETE FROM ITEMS WHERE ROWID>2;"
KILLALL DOCK
Populating the New Launchpad
If you activate Launchpad, you should find that it's empty. You can now fill
the Launchpad with your own selection of apps by clicking and dragging them
from the Applications list within Finder onto the Dock's Launchpad icon
(clicking and dragging app icons from the Dock to the Launchpad icon will
not work).
Note that any new apps you download via the App Store from this point
onward will still be added to your new Launchpad. There's no way to deactivate
this, but you can remove each app icon manually from Launchpad using the
following command, typed into a Terminal window—replace APPLICATION NAME
with the name of the app as it appears in Launchpad:
SQLITE3 ~/LIBRARY/APPLICATION\ SUPPORT/DOCK/*.DB "DELETE FROM APPS WHERE
TITLE='APPLICATION NAME';";KILLALL DOCK
For example, if I wanted to delete an app's icon, the title of which was
Countdown Timer, I would type the following:
SQLITE3 ~/LIBRARY/APPLICATION\ SUPPORT/DOCK/*.DB "DELETE FROM APPS WHERE
TITLE='COUNTDOWN TIMER';";KILLALL DOCK
Note that this doesn't delete the app from your system, and you'll still find it
within the Applications list of Finder. It simply removes the app's icon from
Launchpad.
Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut
By default Launchpad doesn't have a keyboard shortcut. Assigning one makes
this tip perfect—you can just hit the shortcut to bring up your personal app
launcher whenever you want it.
Open System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences); then click
Keyboard. Select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, then select Launchpad & Dock