DropDMG 3.0 (http://c-command.com/dropdmg/) — a new version of the tool for creating Mac OS X disk images — is now available. The user interface and disk imaging engine have been almost completely redesigned and rewritten.

A Layouts feature gives developers a WYSIWYG editor to set the background picture, view options, and icon positions. Configurations are now editable, and the Configurations window has been merged into the Preferences window.

In DropDMG 3.0, the “New Blank Disk Image…” command lets you protect select folders using the same encryption technology as FileVault but without its drawbacks.
The new version adds support for the “.sparsebundle,” “.sparseimage,” and hybrid (“.iso”) disk image formats.

The DropDMG window in DropDMG 3.0 now has a customizable toolbar for quick access to commonly used commands. The Activity window consolidates progress information into a single window, rather than having separate windows for each operation. Additionally, DropDMG now has progress bars for bulk operations, so that you can see the overall progress (e.g. folder 6 of 10) in addition to the progress for the current operations.

DropDMG can now create device images of hard drives. The “Verify Image…” command now works in the background and can verify a whole folder of disk images at once. You can also bulk-verify multiple encrypted disk images without having to keep re-entering the passphrase.

The “Mount Image…” command now works in the background and can mount multiple disk images at once. You can also bulk-mount encrypted disk images that share the same passphrase.

DropDMG 3.0 adds the “Change Image Passphrase…” command, which makes it faster to change the passphrase of an encrypted disk image. Finally, the “Join Files…” command lets you recombine files that have been split into “.001”, “.002”, etc. files.

DropDMG works with Mac OS X 10.5 or later. Version 3.0 costs US$24; it’s a $12 upgrade for registered users of previous versions.