Posts tagged with "dropbox"

DropDAV 2.0 Launches, Goes Paid at $5 Per Month

If you’re a heavy user of the iWork suite for iPad or the recently released OmniOutliner and have been looking for a way to easily keep documents in “sync” across machines, you’ve probably already heard of DropDAV. By providing a WebDAV interface to your existing Dropbox account, DropDAV allows you to export documents using iOS apps’ “save to WebDAV” function, and have your docs conveniently saved on the desktop. Because DropDAV simply gives Dropbox the capability of becoming a WeDAV server, you’re not really “syncing” documents when you use Pages or Number for iPad –rather, as these apps already use WebDAV, you’re given the option to at least save to Dropbox. That’s something.

The first version of DropDAV, launched a few months ago, became so popular that the developers had to rethink the service from the ground-up and rewrite the whole engine to support the latest WebDAV standards, offer more speed and reliability, and find a pricing model that would keep operations going. DropDAV 1.0, in fact, was free if you were connecting to a free 2 GB Dropbox account, and asked you to pay only if you had a paid Dropbox account. With version 2.0, officially announced two days ago, gone is the freemium model and the differentiation between free and paid Dropbox accounts: DropDAV now has a 14-day free trial, and after that it’s $5 per month. Simple. The developers explain they’ve completely rebuilt DropDAV to be faster, more compliant to standards and less prone to server-side errors; by integrating with the powerful Dropbox API, DropDAV still allows you to virtually export to WebDAV from any app that supports the protocol, and have documents actually offloaded to Dropbox. It works really, really well and, from what I can tell after a quick test (I’m a subscriber), it’s seriously faster and improved. From a technical standpoint, the devs write:

We identified inconsistencies in the way PHP and the OAuth Pear plugin worked with UTF-8 strings. We created a taxonomy of WebDAV clients, sorting out which ones behaved similarly. We integrated in support for WebDAV locking to comply with the Class 2 specifications.

In the end, we bridged our legacy implementations of WebDAV’s hairier functions (written in PHP) with the native UTF-8 support and better Dropbox client in Python. We settled on an implementation that includes extensible request parsing in PHP, communication with Dropbox in Python, then extensible response formatting back in PHP. It’s a lot cleaner than it sounds, and it works really, really well for the entire UTF-8 character set and XML Special characters.

Class 2 support is still a work in progress. In truth, it’s somewhat of a hack in that Dropbox doesn’t support locking, so we could only create the illusion of locking for our WebDAV clients. We think we’ve done that well enough to roll out and will continue improving it to eventually pass the Litmus test in the coming weeks.

If you haven’t checked out DropDAV already, here’s your chance to start a free trial and connect the service to your Dropbox. It works great with the iWork suite, The Omni Group’s apps and a variety of file managers for OS X and iOS (such as iFiles), and it’s probably the best shot you have if you don’t want to go insane with Pages and exporting files in iTunes.

DropIn Enhances Dropbox with Menubar Drag & Drop, Filters, Previews

I rely on Dropbox on a daily basis to sync files between computers, my iTunes music library and have access to folders shared with the MacStories team or my friends. In fact, Dropbox is the first app I install on every new Mac or fresh installation of OS X, being the service that stores my most important data, app libraries, and more. But for as much as I love Dropbox and couldn’t work without it anymore, I loathe the desktop Mac app. Not the syncing service that displays a badge next to my files or folders, or the preference panel that (in the latest version) allows me to set up selective sync: I can’t stand the menubar utility, which is an icon that does nothing but displaying my available space on Dropbox and changing its looks depending on whether Dropbox is syncing or not. It doesn’t do anything else, and more importantly it sits in the menubar but it doesn’t let me drag files onto it for quick uploading.

Meet DropIn, a $1.99 utility from the Mac App Store that enhances your local Dropbox installation by letting you drag files in the menubar, browse recent files, set up notifications and filters. Sure, it’s another icon in the menubar, but at least it lets me do a bunch of things the official app can’t. DropIn has two main functionalities: it displays a preview of recently changed files and enables you to create filters for the files you want to see in there; it comes with a Droplet feature that allows you to move files to Dropbox by dragging them onto the menubar, avoiding the Finder altogether. In DropIn’s preferences I told the app to simply copy files into my Dropbox main directory, but you can choose sub-folders as well or enter your account ID to upload files to the public folder and get a link in your clipboard automatically. This one’s a feature I’ve been looking forward to have on my Mac because I dislike stacks in my dock, and I’d rather have an icon in my menubar instead of having to open a new Finder window every time. And it works great in DropIn.

As for recently changed files and notifications, this is something you can do with the official Dropbox app and Growl, but DropIn lets you set up the number of updated files to display in the dropdown menu and it’s also got inline previews and a button to reveal a file in the Finder. Furthermore, you can set up advanced rules in the Filters section to show / hide specific files and make sure you’re only being notified about things you care about, and not those info.plist files from iTunes.

At $1.99, DropIn is a great addition to Dropbox, if only for the drag & drop functionality that makes it incredibly easy to move anything to your personal cloud. You can get the app from the Mac App Store here. Check out more screenshots below. Read more

Alfred for Mac Adds Sync, Launches AppleScripts with Keyboard Shortcuts

We’re huge fans of Alfred here at MacStories. The minimal launcher for Mac that was released as an alternative to Launchbar and Spotlight quickly evolved into a full-featured solution to browse files, play music from iTunes, manage your system clipboard and check on dictionary definitions. Alfred hasn’t officially reached the 1.0 status, yet the developers iterated so fast in the past months that Alfred has turned into a powerful application launcher packed with functionalities aimed at getting things done using only the keyboard. Looking back at previous Alfred releases, it’s amazing to see how the app went from being a simple way to launch apps to a tool tailored to both casual and power users, thanks to the possibility of creating custom searches, shortening links, browsing the filesystem, and more. The latest stable release of Alfred, 0.9, adds a number of improvements that greatly enhance the feature set of the app.

Alfred 0.9 can now launch any AppleScript on your Mac with a keyboard shortcut. Similarly to how the excellent FastScripts enables you to assign commands to scripts saved locally, the new Global Hotkeys section in the app’s preferences lets you assign a shortcut to a specific script, and run it when Alfred is open without seeing Alfred’s actual window. Just hit the shortcut anywhere on your Mac, and the script will execute. This is true for AppleScripts, files, and apps; being able to run AppleScripts through the app you’re already using for many other things is a very welcome addition, but it’s exclusive to those who bought the Powerpack, which is highly recommended if you want to get the most out of Alfred.

Version 0.9 also comes with Dropbox and iDisk sync, meaning you’ll finally be able to keep Alfred’s settings in sync between different Macs. The app can sync themes, snippets, scripts and custom sites. Alongside iTunes Mini Player improvements, a redesigned Preferences window and several performance enhancements, Alfred 0.9 also introduces new Terminal functionalities: you can run your Terminal commands “silently behind the scenes”, as well as add your own icons to make Terminal commands look like native Alfred actions.

Overall, it’s undeniable Alfred keeps getting better on each release. We don’t know what’s coming in the final 1.0 version, but if previous updates are of any indication I guess the developers are working on something big for the major 1.0 milestone. In the meantime, you can get Alfred here for free, and buy the Powerpack for £12 ($20). Check out more screenshots and the full 0.9 changelog below. Read more

Cydia Tweak Lets You Backup & Restore App Data with Dropbox

One of the biggest annoyances of iOS is the impossibility to easily backup and restore application data to the cloud, without being forced to keep an app installed to not lose everything. This is particularly true for games: not only your Angry Birds record is always at risk of being erased because you might accidentally delete the app from your device or iTunes, there’s also no way to keep data synced between apps running on different devices. For example, it’d be nice to start playing Angry Birds on the iPhone and automatically continue the session (with the same data) on the iPad, or, why not, simply restore data and other settings with one tap from the Internet. This is one of the features Apple is rumored to be working on for the major revamp of MobileMe dubbed iCloud, and while it’d make perfect sense to let gamers restore data using Game Center, a wider implementation of backups and restores across the whole Apple cloud would be certainly more appealing to iPhone and iPad users.

Several hacks in the past months allowed users to extract app data from non-jailbroken devices and back it up to a local computer. These solutions, however, didn’t provide the dead-simple approach of DataDeposit, a free app available in Cydia that backs up your app data to Dropbox, and even allows you to restore it with a single tap from your device, using the cloud.

Once installed, DataDeposit will look into your iOS Applications folder to see apps that can be backed up to Dropbox. This list includes apps installed from the App Store, not the system ones. More specifically, not an entire app will be backed up, just its saved data for your app specific settings and progress – like Angry Birds records or a 1Password local database. Once you hit Backup, DataDeposit will create a “DataDepositApp” folder in your Dropbox, with sub-folders inside it containing .zip archives of data. If you only use your iPhone, you won’t see any of this by default – just a progress bar and a confirmation dialog. When you want to restore, make sure the app is closed, hit Restore and wait for DataDeposit to move the data from the cloud to your device again. I tested this personally and it worked really well: I backed up my Angry Birds data and uninstalled the app; I installed the app again, made sure I had no progress in the game, then restored using DataDeposit. All my completed levels and stars were there, in a matter of seconds.

DataDeposit is free in Cydia, works great with Dropbox and it’s very easy to use. If you’ve been looking for a way to seamlessly backup your app data but you didn’t want to use a manual method, DataDeposit deserves a try.

Writings 1.2 Adds Workspaces and Custom Keyboard [Giveaway]

Since I reviewed the first version of Writings for iPad back in December, I haven’t switched to any other text editor for iOS. I don’t write much on my iPhone, so an iPad application is all I’m looking for when it comes to writing long pieces that will eventually end up on my Mac or into an app like Blogsy. Writings, beautiful user interface aside, has the features I need from an iPad text editor: Dropbox support with plain text editing so I can keep writing on my Mac (or anywhere) if I want to; unobtrusive word counter; a readable default font; a handy margin feature that won’t scroll the document when I’m holding the iPad or resting my thumbs at its sides.

Writings 1.2, released today in the App Store, builds on the excellent feature set of versions 1.0 and 1.1 (the latter brought a list view to easily navigate between dozen of documents) by introducing two new functionalities that I’ve been testing in the beta and greatly improved my workflow: Writings 1.2 adds support for Workspaces – you can decide to sync certain documents to different Dropbox folders, even on different accounts. Whilst the feature sounded a little to complex to me at first, I’ve seen that being able to create a “MacStories” workspace alongside a “Personal” one with notes syncing to multiple Dropbox folders at once helps me getting my notes and articles better organized. You can create as many workspaces as you want, and each one will retain its specific settings. On top of this, you can now manually trigger sync within a document without going back to the main screen.

Last, Writings 1.2 comes with an optional extra row of most used punctuation keys above the standard keyboard. This extra row sure makes the keyboard bigger and will let you see less text on screen, but it can dramatically speed up your typing if you think the iOS keyboard could use some customization options for writers. The tab key and quick “-” access sure help me get my writing done quicker.

Writings 1.2 is still propagating in iTunes and it’s available at $4.99. We have 5 codes to give away thanks to the Ice Cream Studios developers, so follow along past the break for a chance to win a copy of Writings 1.2 for iPad.

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Droplist, The Dropbox-based Todo App, Gains Native iPad Interface

A few weeks ago I reviewed Droplist, a Dropbox-based “list creation app” that allowed you to quickly create todos and lists on the iPhone and have them available anywhere thanks to the Dropbox integration that turned these files into plain text documents. Droplist is an easy to use app that’s powered by a nice design, and it’s now available on the iPad as well thanks to the latest update that made the app universal for all iOS devices.

The iPad app retains the same functionalities we’ve seen on the iPhone: you can create lists on the desktop by following simple formatting rules, and save them to Dropbox to make them available in Droplist. If you prefer to turn an email or a message into a list with its own actions, Droplist allows you to paste items and see them becoming a list in a few seconds. The UI design is, of course, different as it takes advantage of the iPad’s bigger screen, but you’ll feel right home if you’ve used Droplist.

Droplist is available at $1.99 here, and it’s the easiest way to create lists on Dropbox.

Dropbox 1.4 Brings Tabs Back, Direct Uploads from Other Apps

A major update to the official Dropbox app for iOS was released night in the App Store, and it adds important new functionalities to the uploading aspect of the app. Originally released last May on the iPad (a  month after the iPad 1 went on sale), the app was often criticized because of its unintuitive navigation and limited upload features that didn’t allow users to interact with external applications or navigate between folders and starred items with ease. The latest update, version 1.4, aims at fixing these usability issues by bringing tabs back. Instead of having to tap on buttons in the top toolbar, Favorites, Uploads and Settings are accessible alongside the main Dropbox folder in a series of tabs at the bottom.

The most notable feature, however, is the complete revamp of uploads. Not only can Dropbox upload multiple photos and videos at once from your camera roll, it can also accept direct uploads from external apps thanks to the “Open In” menu. For example, you can select a document from apps like Mail and iFiles, send it to Dropbox, and have Dropbox automatically open the upload interface letting you pick a destination for the document you’re importing. It’s fast and works really well.

Dropbox 1.4 is available for free in the App Store. Read more

Essay: The Smart, Intuitive HTML Powered Text Editor for iPhone & iPad

Constantly we’re bombarded or introduced to new text editors and word processors that attempt to redefine and strike a balance between what’s necessary and what isn’t. I’m personally getting to the point where enough is enough, as the focus on being new and imaginative in the iOS and Mac App Store has degraded into providing more of the same under a different name and a slightly different interface. While most of us are perfectly content with trend setters such as PlainText and Elements, Essay ended going above and beyond my expectations for an iOS text editor. Sure there’s SimpleNote, but with DropBox sync and a slew of formatting options I’ll sacrifice instant sync with Notational Velocity for HTML goodness.

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PhotoSync 1.1 Lets You Upload to Dropbox, AirPlay Videos

PhotoSync is a universal iOS application I reviewed a couple of months ago which allows you to share photos and videos shot on an iOS device in a completely new way: thanks to its powerful feature set, PhotoSync can send media from iOS to iOS, and from iOS to a Windows PC or Mac. Unlike several other iOS apps that usually launch a WebDAV server locally to share photos with a computer, or only enable you to send files over to another machine through a standalone utility running on the desktop, PhotoSync can do an actual iOS-to-iOS communication as well as standard desktop sharing. It requires a companion app if you want to send items to your computer, but configuration is painless if you just want to share photos and videos between iPhones and iPads using WiFi or Bluetooth.

The latest update to PhotoSync, released a few hours ago in the App Store, adds the possibility of uploading files to Dropbox or FTP servers directly from the app – a highly requested feature I’m sure will come in handy for those large photo collections that need to go into Dropbox. Uploads in original size (and even RAW) are also supported. Multiple files at once can now be uploaded from the app’s web interface, and videos can be streamed to an Apple TV thanks to AirPlay integration (iOS 4.3 is required).

PhotoSync 1.1 is available at $1.99 in the App Store. Full changelog below. Read more