Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity
Friday Favorite: Dropzone
One of my favorite new tools is Dropzone from Aptonic Software. Cory mentioned it back in early beta, but it's come a long way since then. Dropzone lets you set up "destinations," and when you click its icon in the dock it pops up a HUD-style window with icons for each destination. You can drop files and text onto each icon, or have them launch apps and run scripts with a click. It comes with ready-made destinations for everything from Flickr uploading of dropped images to zipping and emailing a collection of dropped files. The beauty of Dropzone is that the average user can set up all of the destinations they would normally launch other apps for, but users in more advanced stages of geekery can construct their own destinations using the Ruby-based Dropzone API.
My personal Dropzone setup includes destinations for creating projects or opening files in TextMate, opening a folder in GitX, sending files to my Amazon S3 account (puts a publicly-accessible url in my clipboard), filing based on OpenMeta tags, mounting and unmounting FireWire drives, making quick Backpack reminders, and the list goes on. I've even got one that scans dropped text for "http://" links and creates a linkbun.ch for me. Some of these scripts I've written, some were just a matter of customizing the existing destinations. Either way, I've got all of these capabilities no more than a click or drag away.
Creating your own destinations just requires a little Ruby-fu. "But I'm the farthest thing from a level 12 Ruby Mage," you say. Don't sweat it, let the community do it for you. Several scripts from my personal setup, along with a great selection of others, are available in the user-contributed actions section of the Aptonic Software website. Additionally, included actions like the application launcher allow full customization just by selecting the application to trigger.
Dropzone is available for a free trial, and can be had for $10US. Give it a try and see if it doesn't speed up your workflow. If you create any scripts you'd like to share, be sure to let the author know!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
David said 12:54PM on 8-21-2009
Been using this since the early beta, absolutely could not live without it now. It is the foundation of my workflow.
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Jake said 1:05PM on 8-21-2009
The Dropzone website doesn't say it anywhere, but I think it is for Intel only. I have a G4 and it won't run.
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tuaw.20.eitan said 1:23PM on 8-21-2009
How is the better than a folder full of applescript droplets? (This is a sincere question to users of the program. I'm not trolling, I really would like to know.)
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Brett Terpstra said 2:19PM on 8-21-2009
@tuaw.20.eitan: You _could_ replicate most of the functionality of Dropzone with some Applescripting and Shell/Ruby scripts run either with Duckbill/Platypus or called from AppleScript droplets. The grid view of Dock folders isn't triggerable with a drag, though, so you'd have to deal with Finder folders for targets, and you'd be giving up some serious overall convenience. The setup of a Flickr Upload destination, for example, would take quite a bit of finagling to manage in AppleScript, but it's a 2 step-process in Dropzone. In short, a highly-usable interface and convenient setup of actions/destinations. For script-geeks, the added functionality of an extensible API is even more useful (and the community-generated scripts benefit everyone).
tuaw.20.eitan said 7:25PM on 8-21-2009
Thanks for the detailed reply.
K said 2:07PM on 8-21-2009
What's the difference between this stupid App and the Dock?
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Brett Terpstra said 2:21PM on 8-21-2009
What's the difference between this comment and a polite question that gets a real response? See above.
pListOFF said 2:58PM on 8-21-2009
LMAO - Well played, Brett!
SeB_or_Sam said 4:34PM on 8-21-2009
I do love this app. I've been using it since the private beta, and I still love it.
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Kevin said 5:45PM on 8-21-2009
Looks great. Downloaded it but can't seem to find the S3 script anywhere. Anyone know where it can be downloaded?
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Brett Terpstra said 5:58PM on 8-21-2009
The S3 script I'm using is one of my own design, using Python and Platypus to make a droplet. I had it running as a sidebar droplet before Dropzone existed, so it's just a droppable application right now and requires too much configuration to be shareable. Watch the user contributed scripts area... I'll get it converted to ruby and uploaded, eventually.
If you're a scripter and want to build your own S3 destinations in the meantime, check out s3cmd:
http://s3tools.org/s3cmd
Kevin said 6:24PM on 8-21-2009
Much thanks. I may give it a shot. Thanks again for the great recommendation!
John Winter said 7:11PM on 8-21-2009
I wondered how you were doing S3 as well. I'm sure we'll build this into the app eventually.
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Mike D said 11:11PM on 8-22-2009
Very nice and handy little app, played with it for 5 mins and bought it.
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