Dragbox 0.2.3 review

Dragbox is a commandline drag-and-drop tool for GNOME, and more. Dragbox is a tool for connecting the commandline with the desktop

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 22K Developer: Ulrik Sverdrup

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Dragbox is a commandline drag-and-drop tool for GNOME, and more.

Dragbox is a tool for connecting the commandline with the desktop environment. It summons a drag handle from nowhere when you are managing files or information in a shell, further empowering you in your workflow.

Dragbox accepts both drags and drops once started, and can be made to output dragged-to items to the standard output. You can also pipe text to dragbox, or a list of files using xargs.

Clicking an item copies it to the clipboard. Right-clicking opens a context menu with access to the preferences dialog.

For detailed commandline instructions, please read the included man page.

Dragging in gnome works very well, but there are some undiscoverable tricks that can make some things easier.

Pressing modifier keys can switch between different types of drags; dragging a file to nautilus normally copies it, but you can hold shift to move it, or shift-ctrl to make a symlink!
You can drag from any window without activating it by holding the altgr or super key when you drag. This is often very useful.
You can bring up a minimized or obscured window while dragging by hovering momentarily over it's button in the window list (in the gnome-panel)
If you selected something in a window and focus another window, it looks like the selection disappeared. In many cases it's still there, you can try to drag it without focusing the window (see above)
Type escape while dragging to cancel the drag

Here are some key features of "Dragbox":
Drag text and files to and from the dragbox
Pipe text and files to and from the dragbox
Copy file path or text to clipboard on click
Powerful commandline integration in both ways, but the application can be used without touching a terminal

Requirements:
GTK+ version 2.6.x
python2.4
python-gnome2
python-glade2
python2.4-dbus

The exact python modules needed are: gtk, glade, gnome.ui, gnomevfs, gconf [and dbus]

What's New in This Release:
This release fixes small bugs from 0.2.2.
The path to the preferences data file was fixed in the build system and in the code.
One tip was added to the manpage.
The source package was cleaned up a bit for submission to Ubuntu REVU