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Review: DragThing v4.3Reviewed By: Kirk Hiner Review Date: June 14, 2002
I'm a fan of the Dock in OS X. I've been a fan of the Dock since it first appeared at the bottom of my computer screen. I like the ease of placing apps in there (and taking them out), I like the way I can control the size, I even like the bouncing and expanding icons. What I don't like is that the Dock is pretty much useful for applications only. Sure, I can place documents and folders in there, but who knows what they are until you roll over them. And subfolders? Forget about it. I'm a fan of the Finder in OS X. I've been a fan of the Finder since it first appeared in the center of my computer screen. I like the ease of navigating through my folders, I like the way I can control which folder and apps appear in the tool bar, I even like the way I can control my favorites with drag and drop simplicity. What I don't like about the Finder is that it can sometimes take a while to dig deep into my folder hierarchy for a specific file. Sure, I can add the file to my favorites, but when you have as many favorites as I do, the hierarchy has to remain in order to achieve any semblance of order. And now, I'm a fan of DragThing from TLA Systems. DragThing combines the best of the Dock and the Finder into one utility, introducing some great new features of its own (and adding some that Apple has forgotten). It also creates a few problems, but none that greatly hinder the program's usability. The greatest feature of DragThing is its customizability. Apple angered many a Mac user implementing a much more rigid user interface in Mac OS X. This is all well and good by me, because Mac OS X's UI is so elegant that there's rarely a need to work another way. It's better than the methods I was using before. Still, there are times when I want to work my way, not Apple's. There are organization schemes I used that, in certain instances, make better sense than those Apple wants us to use. I was willing to let them go when OS X arrived, but now that I've been using DragThing, I'm happy to bring them all back.
DragThing's powers actually extend beyond the docks themselves. You can also use it to minimze background apps, switch between apps, quit all running apps, and more. The switching, however, does tend to tax less powerful systems as it's constantly redrawing the screen. Nothing too bad, just some stuttering that'll make your computer seem slower than it actually is. Apple's dock, although handy, can get cluttered very quickly. When you consider the number of applications, documents, short cuts and such you have on your system, it just becomes unreasonable to add them all. DragThing make this much more manageable by providing tabs. Sure, you can create separate docks, but I found it much easier to simply create different tabs on my default doc. I put my main applications in one, my graphic applications in another, server and client files got their own tab, etc. Adding items to the dock is a simple matter of drag and drop, and the whole dock can be expanded or contracted to fit the tab with the largest number of apps. DragThing also displays subfolders in conextual menus, so you can have access to all your important documents at the click (and hold) of a button. And yes, DragThing even lets you customize the speed at which the contextual menus pop up.  These features were mainly present in previous versions of DragThing, but that doesn't mean the good folks at TLA Systems have been lazy. Not content to simply carbonize their application, they used DragThing to bring back some traditional Mac OS elements. Most readily apparent and welcome is the return of the desktop trash can. With one click, you can add the trash can back to the bottom right of the screen. This trash works in conjunction with that in Apple's dock, so it becomes a matter of using whichever one happens to be more convenient. Occasionally, after emptying the desktop trash, the dock trash would appear to still contain items. Otherwise, the two worked well together. Actually, before I proceed, I should clarify my last point. After trying out DragThing in multiple ways, I found the best set-up for me was to use it in conjunction with Apple's dock. Before DragThing, I always kept Apple's Dock visible in the bottom center of the screen. Now, I hide it, calling it up when I need it by dragging the mouse to the bottom of the screen. To call up DragThing, I use the key combination I assigned to bring it the foreground. I can also do so by clicking on the minimized button, but this doesn't always seem to work. For some reason, my DragThing dock occasionally stays in the background, even when I click directly on the window. Clicking the apps in the dock still launches them, but because DragThing doesn't come to the foreground, I can't really tell on what I'm clicking to begin with. This only seemed to happen when Virtual PC was running. I also encoutered a problem with the Process Dock. For the most part, it's a convenient way to switch between open apps (by either clicking on the app in the bar or by using the customizable keystrokes to cycle through them). However, after opening quite a few apps, the bar just flows off the screen. You can set this up to display vertically instead of horizontally, but I preferred to keep mine across the top just just below the menu bar.  I'm not going to cover all of the features and settings available in DragThing. Truth be known, I haven't even tried all the features and settings available in DragThing. I've been using it for a month now, and I still find myself tinkering with the preferences and finding some new feature that'll make my computing life easier. Of course, easier is the key word, here. Truth be known, Apple's OS X Dock is much easier to use than is DragThing. For the majority of people out there, that's enough. But if you frequently use dozens of apps to access a dozen more documents stored a half dozen folders deep in your system, or if you simply want to retain the control Apple took away in OS X, DragThing will respect your authority.
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Drag Thing allows the user to create multiple docks which can be placed anywhere on the screen. They can be minimized or maximized, they can be color coded (or even texturized and shaded) or transparent, and they can be resized. You assign keystrokes to control their behavior, and you can assign them to automatically minimize when in the background and maximize when brought to the foreground. Better yet, you can assign different attributes to different docks, so they don't all have to behave the same way. In fact, each layer of each dock can have its own properties as well.