It appears there are some issues with viewing unmounted servers through DragonDrop (by means of dropping in an alias to such, or presumably by refreshing the viewer (or relaunching the application) after the server has been dismounted), such that our noble lizard seeks to mount the volume in question without consultation. The matter is being investigated.
There has also been a report of the scaly beast crashing when multiple items are dragged and dropped upon it, but this behaviour has not proved reproducible on my end.
Any leads in either matter would be appreciated.
DragonDrop, is first and foremost, a vehicle for my exploration of Mac OS X development. I learned Cocoa over the course of this adventure, and shall continue to do so over the course of future projects.
Second and almost foremost, DragonDrop is intended to reintroduce some of the functionality lost with the death of tabbed windows. We all remember tabbed windows, who trod the classic paths. We could drag an open window to the bottom of the screen, and a title-tab peeked up, readily displaying its contents at a click or a drag, and collapsing to insignificance at the slightest thought of dismissal.
Some used the tabs for quick-launching their favoritest of applications and documents, others for drop boxes or to get things out of the way but not gone.
They're back, sort of.
What DragonDrop Does
Drag any file or folder over DragonDrop's icon in the Finder or in the Dock, and drop it upon it (Hence the name. Clever, aren't I?). A window will appear, showing the contents of the folder you dropped, or of the folder containing the file that you did cause do be dropped by the process of dragging. This is a poor cousin to the Finder's list-view, offering basic file operations by way of menu commands and (wait for it) drag and drop, modified by modifier keys in the usual fashion.
The icon at the top of of any window which represents a file or folder, in any application (even in DragonDrop, can be dragged into DragonDrop just like any other file icon.
By default, minimizing such a window causes it to collapse to the bottom of the screen. By way of the Preferences window (command + semicolon), this can be changed to resemble the WindowShades of yore (and of yonder shareware), or to suck to the dock in the mandated manner.
Typically, only one DragonDrop window will be revealed at a time, the others collapsing upon losing focus. Bringing a window back to the front, or clicking its title bar, makes it big and the others small.
You can choose, through the Preferences window's File Viewers tab, whether a single click or a double opens items shown in DragonDrop windows. Return always lets you edit a file's name, and the up-and-down arrows (and tab) move you through the file lists. Command + sideways arrows expands and collapses a selected folder.
Dragging anything over a collapsed DragonDrop window causes its revelation, and will re-collapse once the dragged thing has passed by.
And there's more, hopefully self-evident behaviour. Glance through the menus, look at your preferences, and play.
What DragonDrop Doesn't
This is very much a work in progress, with many features missing that I desire. Patience, and possibly volunteer work, should see the things we wish come to pass.
The bullet-list:
- When copying or linking a file to its own folder, the appended bit of file name (' alias', ' copy 1') appears at the end of the original name, after any file extension. This is because file extensions are whimsical creatures. But I'll work on it.
- Expanded folders re-collapse themselves with alarming frequency and speed, when messing about with files at the root level of a window.
- Right now, aliases/links appear in italics and 'hidden' files appear in gray. These could be preferences, with your choice of how each appears. But these defaults are reasonable, and I intend to add this power later.
- There isn't a whole lot to sort by, only name and date. This may change, but DragonDrop is supposed to be a lean little launcher/drop box, and not the whole of the Finder.
- I don't know any other languages, except Old English and enough Spanish to get me embarassed (or "embarazada", as they say), and I neglected to work in support for localisation in any case. But adding support shouldn't be too hard (and is a Thing I Should Learn), if Someone would like to handle the translation.
- Icon View would be VERY nice. I've got some ideas, and a few half-made prototypes, but nothing deliverable. Thoughts, or class donations, or indication of desire would be appreciated.
- Great fun is to be had confusing DragonDrop with many windows in Docking-Mode, especially in slow-motion.
And probably a few other things. Let me know what keeps you from enjoying my toy, and I'll try to fix it.
DragonDrop is HappyWare
If you use DragonDrop, you must be nice.
To put a concrete mandate behind such a general statement, do something unexpected and good for someone you don't know.
Me
I am David Adamson, a student of Computer Science at Oberlin College.
Drop a note to David.Adamson@oberlin.edu and say howdy.