DragThing was a

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

Dock A dock (from Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The exact meaning va ...

application for

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

. Intended for

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

and as an application switcher, DragThing allowed for multiple docks with user-specified settings such as color, texture and shape. Dock contents could be organized into tabs and paying the shareware fee enabled the user to assign a

keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

to any dock item. DragThing won many awards, and in 2010

MacWorld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

gave it 4.5 mice, highlighting its utility for users who preferred using the mouse over keyboard-oriented launchers such as

LaunchBar LaunchBar is an application launcher for macOS. It provides access to user's applications and files, by entering short abbreviations of the searched item's name. It uses an adaptive algorithm that 'learns' a user's preferred abbreviations for a p ...

or QuickSilver.

History

In its early versions, DragThing brought many features useful in a multitasking environment to

Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. Th ...

such as

alt-tab is the common name for a keyboard shortcut that has been in Microsoft Windows since Windows 2.0 (1987). This shortcut switches between application-level Window (computing), windows without using the mouse; hence it was named ''Task Switcher'' (' ...

application switching and an onscreen representation of running processes. These features were not implemented by Apple until Mac OS 8.5. DragThing was one of the first applications to adopt the

Platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

appearance on

Mac OS 8 Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7, approximately six years before. It places a greater emphasis o ...

and ran in the

Blue Box A blue box is an electronic device that produces tones used to generate the in-band signaling tones formerly used within the North American long-distance telephone network to send line status and called number information over voice circuits. ...

on Apple's aborted

Rhapsody Rhapsody may refer to: * A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time ** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry Computer software * Rhapsody (online music service), an online mu ...

project. The DragThing release schedule slowed between 1998 and 2000, as its developer James Thomson was then employed at

Apple Inc Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

. as part of the team working on

Finder Finder may refer to: * Finder (surname) * Finder (software), part of the Apple Macintosh operating system * ''Finder'' (comics), a comic book series by Carla Speed McNeil * ''Finder'' (novel), a 1994 novel by Emma Bull * Finder Wyvernspur, a fi ...

and Dock. He surmised that the built-in Dock of OS X would soon make DragThing obsolete. Thomson left Apple shortly after Mac OS X was released and resumed work on DragThing, releasing version 4.0 on 24 March 2001, skipping version 3. None of Thomson's code survives in the current shipping version of Apple's Dock. DragThing was first released on 1 May 1995 and celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2005. It was praised in a 2004 article by

Bruce Tognazzini Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini (born 1945) is an American usability consultant and designer. He is a partner in the Nielsen Norman Group, which specializes in human-computer interaction. He was with Apple Computer for fourteen years, then with Sun Micro ...

, who said "...if I could have taken all the lessons learned in Systems 1 through 9 and applied them to System X, I certainly wouldn't have ended up with the Dock. No, I would have ended up with DragThing..." In late 2018, the software develope
warned of probable end-of-life
This decision was confirmed in 2019, with it
website
updated to say:

References

External links

*
MacUpdate - DragThing
Macintosh-only software Application launchers {{mac-software-stub