[tweetmeme]Mac developers have forever aimed to sweeten our workflows—sweet as they may already be. While this is a problem the iPad aim to solve, we haven’t seen that future yet, so as of right now, whatever makes my Mac workflow more productive, gets sweet words spoken about it. Ambrosia Software has been known to make one of these workflow ‘shortcut’ apps, Dragster, but has been abandoned for a while. Today they release the version 1.1, which is more than just a maintenance release. Before I go on any further, there another app Dropzone (previously reviewed), which I had been using before getting in on the Dragster 1.1 beta. I’ll compare its features later on, but for now, here’s what Dragster is all about.
Dragster sits in your Dock, waiting to perform mundane tasks for you. If you ever find yourself constantly moving files from your Projects folder, you can drag the file to the Dragster icon, and drop it on your Projects folder action. Dragster can upload a picture to Flickr or Picasa, a video to YouTube, send it to an remote location like an FTP server or iDisk folder, or a bluetooth device; all by just dragging a file over to its dock icon. You can add ‘shortcuts’ for these actions as well, so if you need to upload pictures only to a particular Flickr Set, create a new action with that set as the destination, negating a step in between. Dragster also adds other hooks, like copying the url of an uploaded image so you can instantly paste it into your twitter feed or email. The 1.1 update makes the whole UI much better to look at and work with, along with more ‘destinations’ like bluetooth, YouTube, etc, and, is 64bit.
Which brings me to Dropzone, its direct competition. I’ve used Dropzone and Dragster in beta for a while now, and I get the feeling that Dropzone is an easier to use tool, while Dragster has more of a power workflow to it. Dropzone is more adept at quick social tasks, considering you can add actions to its list including shortening urls, uploading to temporary ‘twitter’ image hosts, text sharing; while Dragster offers more power in terms which file transfer protocol to use for the particular file upload, or making sure your images are tagged right before going up on the web. Dragster is also more responsive after long periods of inactivity, an important part of the workflow.
Take for instance Flickr uploads. You drop an image into the Dropzone Flickr action, and it uploads the image and gives you the url. Dragster on the other hand allows you to add a name, choose the Flickr set, set privacy options, and then upload it. Dragster also allows you to create a ‘shortcut’ which will instantly upload it to any Flickr set, without any confirmation, just like Dropzone. Same thing for the rest of the actions (like regularly emailing a file to Brandon with the subject “Today’s cat photo”). Dropzone is also a prettier app, including its icon, although Dragster’s hideous race-car icon doesn’t look all that awful in the dock.
Ultimately, both apps serve different users. If you’re heavy on consumption of internet media, and are looking for a more ‘fun’ app, Dropzone ($10) is as good as it gets. If you’re however more of a professional, needing things a certain way, Dragster ($19) will not only offer you the power, but also keep up with your speed of working. That is not to say Dropzone can’t be used by professionals, and Dragster is no fun. They’re just slightly different workflows. Me? I choose Dropzone. Both offer trials, and either one is a must have app for any Mac user.
