Hacking the Dock.

I like having my System Preferences app being on the far right side of the Dock. This causes problems whenever applications I open that aren't already on the Dock come up, such as new applications, Software Update, StuffIt Expander, Preview, and the like. So what I have to do, being somewhat OCD, is drag those apps over to the left of the System Preferences icon, and then drag them off the Dock, so they won't stay when they're done. Is there any way to simply hack the Dock to make apps automatically appear to the left of the System Preferences icon to begin with, or perhaps to at least automate the action of dragging them?

I've wondered all about this one and tried poking around in Dock.app's plists, but couldn't find anything about the order of apps in the Dock.

Without a 3rd party app, I don't think it's possible. But the first place for you to start looking would be in the Dock.app Info.plist.