Shovel is a Software Update application that helps you keep your third-party (i.e. non-Apple) applications up-to-date. It can check your applications' version numbers to detect whether a newer version is available, and will download, and (in many cases) also install them.
To work, Shovel needs some help from the developers of the applications you have on your Mac. They have to support the MacPAD format for describing software.
If you're using an application that appears greyed-out in Shovel, it means that its authors do not support MacPAD. E-Mail them, and ask them to add support for MacPAD to their application. Once they do, download the new version of the application and click the Rebuild List button in Shovel, and from then on you will be able to use Shovel to update it.
Since Shovel only updates applications that you already have on your hard disk, it doesn't introduce any additional dangers to your computer. Also, Shovel will not update any applications unless you explicitly tell it to (by clicking the Update Marked button).
However, since Shovel extracts the information on how to update an application from the application itself, updating a particular application is only as trustworthy as the author of said application. Shovel has no means of verifying the authenticity of the update information in a particular application. It simply collects the data, everything else is your decision.
In particular, the author of Shovel can not be held responsible for any damage caused by the updates you decide to install.
Right now, Shovel knows how to update two kinds of applications:
In all other cases, Shovel will ask the user what to do, giving her the option to select a particular installer to run, to copy a particular file over, or to just skip installation and put the downloaded files on the desktop for later manual installation.
M. Uli Kusterer. You can reach him at:
http://www.zathras.de
shovel@zathras.de