Using the Drag Manager __________________ What is the Drag Manager? The Drag Manager is a new part of the Macintosh Operating System that allows you to drag items between applications that support it. VersaTile Pro allows you to drag icons from the Finder and drop them directly onto palette tiles. _________________________ How Do I Install the Drag Manager? The Drag Manager is incorporated into System 7.5. If you are using System 7.5 or later you can use VersaTile Pro's drag and drop features. I've also heard that the Drag Manager is incorporated into System 7 Pro, but I haven't confirmed this. Apple has also released separate Drag Manager Extensions that can be used with System 7.1 or later. These extensions are contained in the "Macintosh Drag & Drop" developers package which is available to the public on eWorld in the Apple Developer's forum. These extensions are also available on several developer oriented CD's and from many user's groups.   ____________ The Macintosh Drag & Drop Extensions ____________________________ What Can I Do with the Drag Manager? Dragging from the Finder to VersaTile: You can drag any icon and drop it onto an empty tile and have the item appear on the tile. You will see the empty tile depress inward as you move the dragged item over the palette. Once the tile is depressed you can release the mouse button to drop the item onto the palette.   _____________ Using System 7.5 Drag & Drop to Add Items to a Palette You can drag an icon and drop it on a tile that contains a folder, disk, or trash and have the item moved into the folder, disk, or trash. You will see the folder, disk, or trash icon become selected as you drag the items over the palette. Once the folder, disk, or trash icon is highlighted you can release the mouse button to drop the item onto the palette. You can drop a document onto an tile that contains an application and the application will open the document. There are a few exceptions to this rule: If the application is old and is not System 7 savvy, the application may not open the document. If the document is not in a format that the application recognizes, for example you drop a text document on a paint application, the application may not open the document. VersaTile Pro does not check to see if the application can handle the document type. It only asks the application to open the document. Dragging from VersaTile to VersaTile: You can now drag tile items from one palette to another, or within the same palette. Dragging between tiles mimics standard Finder drag operations. If the option key is held down, and the destination tile is empty, the source tile will be duplicated, otherwise the tile will be moved to the new destination. If the destination tile is a tile containing a folder, the source tile's item will be moved into the folder. If the destination tile is a tile containing an application, the source tile's item will attempt to be opened by the destination application. Dragging between VersaTile and other Applications: If you have other applications which support drag and drop, you can drag items between the two, provided that the dragged item is one recognized by both applications. VersaTile only recognizes file specifications (Finder items) so it will not accept dragged text, pictures, etc. Some compression /decompression software also recognize drag & drop file specifications so you could drag tiles from VersaTile and drop them into the other software to have those tile items stuffed. As more applications begin to support drag & drop, the possibilities will grow also. Dragging Multiple Items: You can drag more than one item at a time from the Finder and drop them onto a palette tile. If you drop more than one item onto a blank tile, VersaTile Pro will put the first item on the blank tile, and the following items on the next available blank tiles it finds in that palette. If there are not enough blank tile, the extra dropped items are ignored. If you drop more than one item on a tile that contain the Trash, a folder, or a disk all the dropped items will be moved accordingly. If you drop more than one item onto a tile that contains an application, the application will be asked to open all the dropped items no matter what they are. ____________________________ Using System 7's Drag and Drop Features If you don't have VersaTile Pro, or access to the new System 7.5 Drag Manager don't despair, you can still perform some standard System 7.0 drag and drop tasks. You can select any icon(s) in the Finder and drag and drop it onto VersaTile's application icon. To add items to a palette using System 7.0's Drag and Drop Feature, first ensure that the palette you want the items to appear on is open and it is the active palette (topmost window) and that it contains enough blank tiles for the all items you want to drop on it. Next, go to the Finder and select the items you want to appear on the active palette. Drag your selected items and drop them onto the VersaTile application icon.   _____________ Using System 7.0 Drag & Drop to Add Items to a Palette You can drag and drop up to 18 items (VersaTile Classic) or 48 items (VersaTile Pro) at one time onto a completely empty palette. The items you selected will appear on the current palette. Note: If the "Confirm Old Style System 7 Drops" option is on in the General Preferences Areas, and no palette is currently open, VersaTile will ask if you want to create a new palette to contain the dropped items. This option will also cause VersaTile to ask if you want the dropped item to appear on the current palette, new palette, or cancel for each group of items dropped onto the VersaTile application icon. If there are not enough empty tiles to hold all the dropped items, VersaTile will put as many as possible on the palette and disregard the remainder. At the current time you cannot use System 7.0's Drag & Drop method to put palette files on another palette. Dragging and Dropping a palette file onto the VersaTile application icon will cause the dropped palette file to be opened (this is standard Macintosh behavior). Use the Action Menu to place palettes file on your palettes.