Filed under: Software, Beta Beat
Beta Beat: Dropzone for Mac OS X
Dropzone is a small application that you can install on your Mac, and as the app name suggests, drag stuff onto. When you drop a file on the icon, you will get a list of options depending on what type of file you just dropped. For instance, you could drop a picture onto the icon and get an option to email, send to Flickr, or upload to an FTP server.
Different applications can "register" to work with Dropzone by using a simple API, the documentation for which can be found on the Aptonic website. The more applications that decide to work with Dropzone, the better (developers, did you hear that?). There is currently no shipping date set for this handy little Dock tool, but you can check out a teaser video on the Aptonic website, and also apply to be a part of the beta program.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
copey said 11:56AM on 5-04-2009
how is this easier than right-clicking?
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Norm said 12:31PM on 5-04-2009
.... or quicksilver?
Erick said 1:29PM on 5-04-2009
@Norm
You think quicksilver is easier than this program?? Geez.
jollyllama said 2:30PM on 5-04-2009
This is what a well-supported quicksilver should be able to do, and with relative ease. Unfortunately, QS has been withering as of late (although I'm absolutely still using it, launchbar doesn't have nearly enough advanced functionality yet), but here's hoping for new releases soon...
hmurchison said 8:12PM on 5-04-2009
Right clicking what? You mean to get a contextual menu of some sort?
Level 5 said 12:37PM on 5-04-2009
I dunno.. wasn't there a trick/program to allow you to make Stacks of program shortcuts, etc? That to me would be a better solution.
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John Smith Bitch said 1:50PM on 5-04-2009
http://stuntsoftware.com/Overflow/
Better.
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Think Adrian said 2:01PM on 5-04-2009
No. You can't choose what to do with an item if you drag it on an application. How do you choose if you want to view or send a text document?
hmurchison said 8:07PM on 5-04-2009
Voice dictation has a much brighter future than multitouch IMO. I've used and trained people with Dragon NaturallySpeaking and once you get the hang of it you can easily get %90 accuracy. This version doesn't use Macros and that will need to change as Macros really begin to display the power of voice recognition.
hmurchison said 8:09PM on 5-04-2009
It looks like Overflow but it's not an app launcher. It seems to run Applscripts or some sort of script when a file is dropped onto an icon. Hence the reason why 3rd party developer support is needed.
Ignore the dication comment that was 1password doing its thing.
booticon said 2:00PM on 5-04-2009
For sharing images/files, there's also Dockdrop: http://dockdropx.com/
You set it up with account information like FTP, WebDAV and Flickr, and you drag an image to it, select how you want to upload it, and it'll copy the URL to your clipboard.
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David Ducovney said 2:03PM on 5-04-2009
Did they license the music on that site? cough.
Nice looking application though.
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Michael said 2:24PM on 5-04-2009
You guys aren't getting it. This application is NOT for shortcuts. It allows a ton of functionality similar to Quicksilver however with the ease of drag and drop. The best part is that the API is available so that developers can incorporate their own Plugins to be added to DropZone.
I think a lot of you are totally missing the point.
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Ben said 2:26PM on 5-04-2009
"There is currently no shipping date set for this handy little Dock tool"
Actually, at the end of the video it sais to be launched on May 2009..so there is sort of a release date, this month, which is about 27 days more top.
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Fernando said 3:38PM on 5-04-2009
Wow, this looks handy, it'd kill a couple icons I have in my dock. (Folders, transmission droplets, flickr uploader)
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Bill Lapolla said 8:49PM on 5-04-2009
Looks like an implementation of Dragster from AmbrosiaSW dot com.
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Joseph said 1:26AM on 5-05-2009
Great write-up - would love more of these new-app-tips. keep up the good work. Hopefully people will comment more on the articles they like and reward the writers.
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John Winter said 2:23AM on 5-05-2009
Hi Guys - Dropzone creator here. I had a good laugh reading some of those comments. Let me explain a few things:
Dropzone allows you to setup 'destinations' (each icon in the grid is a destination). You can then drag files, folders, text or whatever onto a destination and then that gets passed to a ruby or bash script for processing (called a 'destination script'). A destination script can do anything you could imagine, upload files, save text to a file or resize an image. You can also share destination scripts with others so they can extend Dropzone.
Several destination scripts will ship with Dropzone, currently these are:
-Open with application (this lets you open dragged files with a specified application, similar to Overflow)
-Move files to a specified folder
-Zip & Email (zip up files or folders and add them as an attachment to Mail.app)
-Pastie (send text to the pastie.org service)
-Install an application (copies the dragged application to your applications folder, runs it and ejects the disk image)
-Core protocols (FTP, SPFTP, Flickr, etc.)
Also planned is the ability to use the grid as a script launcher. Although I am focusing on drag & drop at the moment.
It is similar to Dragster and Overflow in some ways, but one of the the key differences is that with Dropzone the focus is on being able to easily write destination scripts so you can extend Dropzone to do whatever you want. The user interface in Dropzone also offers a much more OSX native feel by using Core Animation to provide an experience similar to the OSX Dock grid.
Quicksilver can also do similar things to Dropzone using its Drag and Drop mouse triggers, but this doesn't allow you to visually choose a destination by dragging onto it like Dropzone does and you are also limited to 4 corners. This feature is more of an afterthought in Quicksilver and leaves a lot to be desired.
Hopefully that clarifies a few things!
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Maddy said 3:34AM on 5-05-2009
That's great news. You have to tell me about Ruby on OS X, too. I would have liked to go, too.
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