• john
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  • Registered: 2010-03-24
  • Posts: 37

Topic: How I use Dropzone

People tell me they love Dropzone, but they're not aware of the best ways to use it to enhance their Mac workflow.

I'm often surprised by the creative ways I see people are using it so I thought we could all do a bit of show and tell by taking a screenshot of our grids and then explaining how we use each destination. Starting with me.

So.... Here's my grid:

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Pixelmator: I don't use it often enough to keep in my dock, but I like to have it handy in Dropzone.

Install: For installing applications. Although I more often right click on a .dmg or .zip in the Finder and do an Open with Application -> Dropzone.

Downloads: For filing stuff quickly that was on my desktop, or quickly saving an image or something from the web.

Flickr: My main Flickr account, for sending cool pics.

Save Text: For whenever I want to file away a quick snippet. I often use this for saving a bit of code or something I want to use later.

Dropbox: This is the actual Dropbox destination from http://aptonic.com/extend.php - it copies the dragged file to my Dropbox folder and copies the Dropbox URL to my clipboard.

Paul: A 'Move Files' destination that points to a friends shared Dropbox folder. I use this constantly for sharing pictures, music and video.

Share Text: Sends a snippet of text to Pastie. Great for sharing code.

shipsomecode: An FTP Upload destination that sends pictures to a folder on my blog - http://shipsomecode.com
I use this for uploading things I want to share on my blog but also as a general way to share anything.

ImageShack: I used it to share the picture of my grid above.

Zip Files: Another destination from http://aptonic.com/extend.php - it zips up dropped files or folders and creates the zip archive on my desktop ready for Dropboxing or uploading to somewhere.

Mac Mini: Another FTP Upload destination. I have FTP Sharing setup on a Mac Mini beside me that I use for testing builds of Dropzone. I have a folder on its desktop called 'From iMac' and when I drop a file or folder on this destination and it magically shows up in that folder.

Say Text: Reads dragged text aloud. I use it occasionally to help me proof read some text or an email.

Screencasts: Points at a folder on Aptonic and whenever I want to post a new screencast to twitter and/or the blog I drop it on here and it gives me the URL. I use this constantly.

TextMate: I use TextMate fairly often but don't want it in my dock.

TwitPic: Another way I can quickly share an image. It will also let you enter a message and auto-tweet if you hold down option when dragging.

djstuff: Another 'Move Files' destination that points to a friends shared Dropbox folder.

Skitch: If I want to quickly resize or annotate an image I drag it onto here and then usually from Skitch onto another destination.

GitHub Gist: Lets me create gists with snippets of text or code on http://gist.github.com/ This destination was recently released on http://aptonic.com/extend.php

AWS: Amazon Web Services (S3). I am working on full on Amazon S3 support for Dropzone. It's a work in progress at the moment though.

Finder Path: If I click on a file in the Finder and click on this destination it copies the full path of the selected file to the clipboard. I wrote this at the request of someone. I have yet to discover the utility of this.

Print: I use this for quickly printing an individual image from a webpage e.g. a map.

Test Destination: This is my general purpose debugging destination. I use this for testing all kinds of things and checking that I haven't broken the Dropzone API.

Go Music: This is a 'Download' destination which is yet to be released, but you can download it from http://github.com/aptonic/dropzone-user … d.dropzone

It takes a list of URLs and downloads them all to a folder of your choosing. I have it set to download into '/Users/john/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Automatically Add to iTunes' and then the files auto-add to iTunes as they download. Love it.


So now that I've got the ball rolling, post a screenshot of your grid and tell us how you use Dropzone smile

  • Registered: 2010-03-24
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I use Dropzone

Always interessted in nice Dropzones to use so ok I'll put mine up:

Dropzone

  • Install Application was already mentioned, I just love it, feels to me actually like a missing feature of MacOSX by now

  • Flickr pointing to my Flickr Account is great for sharing quickly (but I mainly use Twitpic for that)

  • Bitly for URL shortening is essential since I'm still using Twitterific as my default Twitter client which does not support that by itself

  • FW(Un)Mount for quickly unmounting all my FireWire drives, was really essential some time ago when I had like 4 FW drives connected to my MacBook Pro

  • AppCleaner just to do the opposite of Install Application

  • Twitpic -> see Bitly

  • Share Text -> Don't use this really often but great for IRC and so on to share formatted text, and Code

  • SubEthaEdit I don't use it often enough to keep in my Dock but it's really handy for quick editing where I don't want to run MacVIM

  • Dropbox wrote that myself (and published it seems like John like it smile ) comes in very handy to share files while in any other App, and since I got around to implementing Folder shareing as Zip files its quick handy to share an App with a Friend to smile

Thanks for the Forum John keep up the good work

Last edited by sideshowcoder (2010-03-24 16:11:31)

  • alex
  • New member
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  • Registered: 2010-03-24
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I use Dropzone

http://grab.by/3hvF
I use dropzone quite  a bit daily...
Zip and Email: I have to email people work quite often and this helps when attaching files
Install Application: I tend to find new apps quite a often so this helps when installing them smile
FTP: I have a folder set up so when I want to share a video, files, zip etc so really handy to be able to just drag it over to get a link
Remove App: This opens App Delete with the application, for when I no-longer want to use something
Print: Printing all my work...
Bit.ly: Don't really use that much... But seem to have kept it in my dropzone grid
Screen Shots: I use tiny grab but when I also want to keep an image (even though its online) I just drag it over to that file.
Flickr: Don't use this that much either but its good the the times that I do.
Share Text: Sharing text
Rucksack: After I have finished a project I can zip it up quickly and then normally  move it somewhere I keep finished things.

  • pytey
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  • Registered: 2010-03-25
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I use Dropzone

Started using Dropzone a few weeks ago, love it.
dropzone grid:
share it: I use this to scp files to a 'public' URL where I share screenshots, uploads etc in I.M and IRC
Dropbox: Used for public DropBox stuff
bit.ly: URL shortening for my tweets
torrent upload: This is just another scp to a specific folder on another host that is used as a seed box. This box runs 'rtorrent' and watches that specific directory for torrent files that are added and when complete are moved to a directory on the host that I can browse. 
Flickr Upload: This uploads to my Flickr, nothing out of the ordinary
Install Application: Don't really use this, as I have not installed anything recently, but I left it there as I know it'll be useful smile
Gallery: I installed this today, looks good for quickly sharing groups of photos in gallery form, scp'ing and copying the URL to the clipboard (from http://j.mp/dewWuW )
Private Pastie: I hacked something up that will create a private pastie from the clipboard when the 'Private Pastie' icon is clicked within Dropzone or a txt file is dragged onto it.

Last edited by pytey (2010-03-25 10:46:29)

  • Registered: 2010-03-27
  • Posts: 2

Re: How I use Dropzone

Hi,

nothing spectacular but anyway, here is my grid:
http://emberapp.com/racemase/images/gridwindow/sizes/m.png
The first six destinations are all folders I frequently fill files into. Some are local folders, some are dropbox folders, and some are located on a shared drive.
The destinations I use most are Install and bit.ly but esp. Print I find very helpfull two.
I do have several other ideas for new destinations but unfortunately I am not able to code them by myself. So, I just wait and see what other people come up with.

Thanks for the great app!

  • Registered: 2010-03-29
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I use Dropzone

http://b3ta.info/tmp/dropzone.png
I'm using dropzone since a few months already. I use it mainly for uploading and sharing screenshots or pictures with my friends. So for, I'm quite fallen in love with this neat little app! smile

SCP Upload for uploading single pictures to a temporary folder on my webspace
resize is a small script I wrote which moves files to specific folder. Pictures among these files are getting resized to a smaller size. The resizing relies on ImageMagick.
links to markdown is a cool script which comes in very handy when writing blog posts in markdown. It parses the clipboard for links and puts out the appropriate markdown syntax! Very nice indeed.
SCP Gallery pytey mentioned this script earlier above. This is a script I wrote for uploading pictures. A gallery is created automatically so that you can show these pictures to your friends! More about it at: http://wulfovitch.net/2010/01/Dropzone- … -Creation/ - It can also be download at the aptonic github repository... smile

  • Registered: 2010-07-20
  • Posts: 2

Re: How I use Dropzone

hey smile

just finding my way around dropzone and loving it very much.

the imageshack upload is by far my most commonly used destination. i used to use a "image upload" dashboard widget (http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboar … pload.html) but it can be a bit flaky, so dropzone's add-on is the perfect solution for me smile

here's mine - as you can see it's still pretty basic big_smile

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9166/ishot1.png

at some point i'll also set up an sftp connection to my patchstick'd apple tv smile

however, this destination you've mentioned in your post really interests me:

John wrote:

Finder Path: If I click on a file in the Finder and click on this destination it copies the full path of the selected file to the clipboard. I wrote this at the request of someone. I have yet to discover the utility of this.

@ john: is this destination available? and does it work over network drives?

i do a lot of work where the end document has to be copied to a network server, and then i have to email colleagues the url

being able to get the network path of that file copied to my clipboard would be great smile

also (and here's a feature request, sorry)  my colleagues tend to be using windows machines, so could there also be an option to translate the network path to a windows-friendly one, eg: path\to\file ?

  • Registered: 2010-07-20
  • Posts: 2

Re: How I use Dropzone

hi. me again... i just wanted to add that i found that Finder Path destination in the guthub repository

http://github.com/aptonic/dropzone-user … h.dropzone

and can confirm that it does indeed work for network locations smile

now all i need it to do is to switch the forward-slashes in the path to windows-style back-slashes... any ideas? would a ruby text-replace work?

(sorry if this should be posted in a different section - i realise it's now turned into a discussion of destination development...)

  • From: Greater Sudbury
  • Registered: 2010-11-24
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I use Dropzone

I basically just use shortcuts, my desktop is clean.


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