Every useful tool on the Mac wants a keyboard shortcut, and there are only so many combinations a person can hold in their head. Element Capture alone has five modes. Window Snap has halves, quarters and thirds. Voice Transcribe has its record and dictate actions. Give each its own chord and you have a keyboard full of things you will forget by Thursday. Ring is the answer to that: one shortcut you remember, and a ring of buttons that remembers the rest.
Why a ring and not a list
A list menu makes you read. A ring makes you point. The distance from the centre to any button is the same, and the direction is the only thing that changes, so after a few uses the gesture becomes muscle memory: hold, flick up-left, release. Games have used radial menus for decades for exactly this reason. It is the fastest way to choose one of a handful of things while your other hand is busy.
Ring also fits Droppy's own habit of turning a droplet into a place. Element Capture got its own radial menu in 15.0 beta 8, one for every capture mode. Ring generalises that: any action from any droplet, plus things outside Droppy, on one ring or three.
Two ways to drive it
- Hold, move, let go
- Press and hold the shortcut. The ring opens. Move the pointer toward a button and release the keys. The action runs. This is the fast path and the one worth learning.
- Tap, then click
- Tap the shortcut and the ring stays open. Click a button. This is the deliberate path for a ring you have not memorised yet, or for a rarely used action.
- Single, dual or triple
- Switch on a second inner ring, or a third, to keep more sets under one shortcut. Capture on the outer ring, window placement on the inner one, apps in the middle.
What goes on a ring
Whole droplets, ready made. Pick Element Capture and every capture mode is on the ring: element, area, window, full screen, scrolling, with OCR beside them. Pick Window Snap and the halves, quarters, thirds and maximise are there. Pick Voice Transcribe for record and dictate. Then mix: take three capture modes, two snaps and dictation, and make that your ring.
Launch or switch. Put the six apps you live in on a ring and the Dock becomes optional. Hold, flick, and the app is in front. It replaces a stack of app-specific launch shortcuts with one gesture.
Keyboard macros, per app. A button that sends a key combination to the frontmost app, and that can be different depending on which app that is. The same ring button means Export in one app and Render in another, without you remembering either chord.
macOS Shortcuts. Anything you have built in the Shortcuts app runs from a ring button. Resize the last screenshot, toggle a Focus, send a file to the Basket. Ring is the trigger, Shortcuts is the logic.
A preset is a starting point, not a cage. Every button on a preset ring can be swapped for anything else.
A ring I actually use
Outer ring: element capture, area capture, window capture, OCR, and record with Voice Transcribe. Inner ring: left half, right half, maximise, and a macro that sends the app-specific save-as chord. That is nine actions under one shortcut. Before Ring, those were nine chords, and I used three of them because those were the three I could remember.
| Before Ring | With Ring |
|---|---|
| One shortcut per capture mode, five to remember | One shortcut, five buttons |
| Window snaps on a second set of chords | Same shortcut, inner ring |
| App launches through the Dock or a launcher | A ring of apps, no reading |
| Per-app export chords looked up each time | One macro button that adapts to the app |
Where it sits beside Thunderstorm
Droppy also has Thunderstorm, a Spotlight-style panel that searches and acts. The two are not rivals. Thunderstorm is for the thing you have to name: a file, a setting, an app you rarely open. Ring is for the handful of actions you do all day and do not want to name at all. Type when the target is unknown, flick when it is known. Most people end up with both on shortcuts they never have to think about.
Setting it up
Switch Ring on in Settings, record a shortcut, and pick a preset. The ring opens the first time you hold the shortcut. Rearrange buttons, swap them, or add a second ring from the same settings page. Ring shipped in Droppy 15.2 beta 1 alongside the rebuilt Shortcuts panel, where every Droppy shortcut, including Ring's, is now in one searchable place with native recording popovers that flag conflicts as you press the keys.