Replacement of DragThing

TidBITS Talk
42

Andy I just discovered iCollections as well, via AlternativesTo.net … I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it prompted me automatically “Do you want to import your Dragthing collection to iCollections?” . I clicked yes, and it did a pretty good job of displaying it instantly.

I noticed a few things right out the gate that were not as flexible as Dragthing — but then I sent a side-by-side screenshot to the devs just now, with some Questions, and they responded in under 2 minutes, describing line-item changes that were already in the works on their upcoming version. That gave me a good feeling, that it’s an app that will continue to be developed going forward.

Examples of things I commented/asked about:
I use a 2-display setup, a LEFT DISPLAY and RIGHT DISPLAY, and I have used Dragthing as a 2-icon wide vertical stripe that I place at the left edge of my RIGHT DISPLAY, with a wide mix of apps, folders, system prefs, etc.

(1) But Dragthing allowed for greater density of icons, whereas iCollections added more horizontal and vertical padding between items. THEY SAID THAT IS BEING HANDLED IN NEW VERSION, and will even enable overlapping of icons.

(2) Dragthing allowed me to snap the vertical panel to the very top of my screen. iCollections enables you to make the palette label at the top “hidden”, but apparently it holds that space, preventing nudging upwards to snap to top. (They have not addressed this item yet)

(3) Dragthing allows for “blank spaces” (blank cells) where there are no icons. iCollections auto-wraps, preventing blank spaces. *BUT AGAIN HERE, they said they are already in beta on their new “Grid Mode” which will allow that very thing, so that’s two things already they’ve improved for next release. He even gave me a link to the beta grid-mode. (It does not appear to be a private link, but rather appears in the open on their feature documentation pages. So here: https://naarakstudio.com/icollections/manual/gridmode.html )

(4) I use a ton of custom icons, for not just special folders, but also to replace the ugly icons of various applications. With Dragthing, if the icon is changeable in Mac’s Finder, then if I drag that app into Dragthing, the new custom icon i assigned gets used by Dragthing. Not so in iCollections, it uses the default application icon, disrespecting my cusom icon. (I should add, though, that Dragthing does NOT accept custom icons I’ve applied to certain website URLs i’ve dragged into it. But iCollections DOES display custom icons — making it so much easier to recognize various websites that are part of my daily workflow.

So, I’m thinking iCollections is a great bet for the longhaul, because the devs are responsive.

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I have used DragThing for over 20 years (since Mac OS 8.5.1 IIRC) so moving on has been a challenge. Thanks to this thread, I found iCollections which for me is a nearly equivalent functional replacement for DT. The fact I could import my DT collections into iCollections was a bonus, but the key use for me is a multi-tabbed dock so I can organize the items I access frequently and that hides out of the way when I don’t need it.

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The only thing that seems to be still missing is the ability to put a working Trash Can icon on the desktop; that was a major feature of DT for me!

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After reading this thread, I decided to try Apps Are Go, mentioned above by the developer sjmills. There’s no free trial, but it’s only $3 on the Mac App Store. Setup is trivial. Start the app, then go to the File menu and select Replicate DragThing Dock. It did that quickly. It doesn’t have all the features of DT, but it does have tabs and the docks just slide out of the way.

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FYI, Version 3.0 of Station was released.

Station on the Mac App Store

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Has anyone tried SwitchGlass?

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Me too. I find iCollection the closest one to DragThing, and I also like their support.
Everytime I have a question and I email them, I get a very fast reply. I like that very much. :slight_smile:

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Now that I’ve been using it for a few weeks, I’d also like to recommend iCollections as an excellent replacement for DragThing.

I had used DragThing daily for 20-25 years. I had a complex multi-tabbed dock with links to apps, documents, folders, and so on. I also used DragThing’s process dock, as well as its trashcan on the desktop.

iCollections replaced all that functionality. It even imported the settings for my complex main dock; so with just some appearance tweaks, I was quickly back in business.

Since iCollections works well, and seems to be updated regularly, it appears to be a perfect replacement for most DragThing users. Give it a careful look.

2 Likes
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I still can’t believe Apple didn’t keep DragThing. It is THE best multi layered dock manager for aliases and keyboard shortcuts out there and I’ve been using it since day 1 almost 25 years ago on every single one of my Macs.

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Management wise. I try to do everything from the keyboard and only touch the mouse when I need to. This is a short list of what I cannot do with iCollections and therefore would not consider it an excellent replacement for DT. I’m hoping to be wrong so please correct me if that’s the case.

  • No one keystroke to put iCollections up front. I assigned a hotkey to show/hide but I usually need to hit it twice. DT had its own hotkey in Prefs.
  • Once up front, in DT I just hit an arrow key and I can instantly navigate L & R to item I want to select in that layer. I hit Return and item is opened. I hit ⌘ R and I go to original. I hit Enter and I can change name, Default app, select New Original, add notes, change Hotkey, deactivate hotkey (very useful sometimes), navigate from that window to next item’s window which follows on the dock, even going to next layer. Once done, hit Enter and you’re back in the dock. Hit ⌘→/← and you tab thru all layers.
    Status bar follows selection on Dock and shows Hotkey, wow.
    Once up front in iC, you have to grab the mouse just to select an item and start navigating, except, the status bar info is not even following your selection ! It follows the pointer ! There’s nothing you can do from the keyboard ! Everything needs to be done with the mouse and contextual menus. You have to open Settings and go to Hotkeys just to check what keyboard shortcut you assigned !
    For the ones who just love to do everything possible from the keyboard, I’m just hoping DragThing comes back or another app in 64bit comes along to really replace DT.
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I’m completely the opposite. I rely heavily on the mouse because my weak brain cannot remember any of the keystrokes.