Wish the topic of this thread was renamed to not cause hysteria. You can still share publicly, it just doesn't need to be a in a magic folder first. Although the magic folder was a great way of remembering what you had shared, I'm sure the Dropbox folks will come up with some other way of reminding me about my publicly shared files.
Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
21–30 of 153 posts
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#22This is a move absolutely in the wrong direction. I'm sure the idea is to push more eyeballs across the DB logo and grow the userbase. But to those users, DB will look like yet another fileshare a la megaupload/filefront/whatever and not something particularly special.
Here's some better ideas:
- harden up the way users want to use the public folder and make it more like a CDN
- Add another price tier if they must to ensure it works!
- Let users host web sites out of their public folder! Hand craft HTML still has a place among basic users who just want to put up a web page about their dog!
- put media specific folders in the public folder (maybe at different price tiers) and turn it into a flickr/soundcloud/youtube competitor!
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that case they should implement instant shared link creation, not via opening a web browser.
You can get still get a link via right-click menu (at least on Mac OSX) for any file in your Dropbox folder (including the ones outside of the Dropbox > Public folder).
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9910153/20111022_131203.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3wlvb7h36o5uvb/20111022_131203.jp...
There are your two links. One is a public folder the other is not.
One takes you to a web browser before you can even get the link. One does not.
Guess which one I would rather have. And now guess which one they are removing :(
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#24Wish the topic of this thread was renamed to not cause hysteria. You can still share publicly, it just doesn't need to be a in a magic folder first. Although the magic folder was a great way of remembering what you had shared, I'm sure the Dropbox folks will come up with some other way of reminding me about my publicly shared files.
The hysteria, if any, would be about the fact that all shared links would direct you to a splash page on the web on which you'd have to click on another link to download the shared object, as opposed to the current public folder serving up direct links (w/o the added step).
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#25People started to use Dropbox as a free CDN, didn't they? Why do we need AWS CloudFront if we have Dropbox? :)
I agree .. this is probably the reason. However I think the fact that dropbox could be utilized in unexpected ways, provided the company with a great deal of goodwill and singled them out as innovators in an otherwise stale market.
Sorry, tried to upvote you but hit down by accident as my fingers are too fat.
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, however, the new way seems counter intuitive. It would be difficult to keep track of what is publicly shared, at least in an organized manner.
You could organize all the files you want to share into a single folder. Maybe name it something like Share/ or Public/
But you would still have to generate links for each individual file in there right?
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get still get a link via right-click menu (at least on Mac OSX) for any file in your Dropbox folder (including the ones outside of the Dropbox > Public folder).
The problem is that you could share a link and it'd be seamlessly downloaded by a receiver of the link....you could even use them to handle images in web pages for example. Now? The person who is receiving the link has to go to a web page, then click download. It's an unnecessary extra step and a downgrade in the user experience. Even worse, it's now harder to keep track of what you have shared and what you don't. Fr…
"To the receiver of the link DB just looks like an old fashioned file-sharing site a la megaupload and not something special."
How do the direct links help DB look "special"? To me, they scream "generic CDN".
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get still get a link via right-click menu (at least on Mac OSX) for any file in your Dropbox folder (including the ones outside of the Dropbox > Public folder).
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9910153/20111022_131203.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3wlvb7h36o5uvb/20111022_131203.jp... There are your two links. One is a public folder the other is not. One takes you to a web browser before you can even get the link. One does not. Guess which one I would rather have. And now guess which one they are removing :(
Add "?dl=1" to the second one it is a simple link again
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3wlvb7h36o5uvb/20111022_131203.jp...
Magic!
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get still get a link via right-click menu (at least on Mac OSX) for any file in your Dropbox folder (including the ones outside of the Dropbox > Public folder).
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9910153/20111022_131203.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3wlvb7h36o5uvb/20111022_131203.jp... There are your two links. One is a public folder the other is not. One takes you to a web browser before you can even get the link. One does not. Guess which one I would rather have. And now guess which one they are removing :(
There's:
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/s3wlvb7h36o5uvb/20111022_131203.jpg...
But clearly a) if it ends on .jpg it should be an image and not html and b) the direct link should be on the html page with a fancy "Copy to Clipboard" button next to it.
But instead of (b) they are actively preventing getting a link to the image by hijacking the context menu.
Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get still get a link via right-click menu (at least on Mac OSX) for any file in your Dropbox folder (including the ones outside of the Dropbox > Public folder).
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9910153/20111022_131203.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3wlvb7h36o5uvb/20111022_131203.jp... There are your two links. One is a public folder the other is not. One takes you to a web browser before you can even get the link. One does not. Guess which one I would rather have. And now guess which one they are removing :(
Well actually,
https://photos-5.dropbox.com/si/xl/Y-dAUouiiTV2IbOuAMZKe2t7k...
I am not sure if it could work at all times, but you can check for the URL of the picture within the new-style dropbox page.
Which is of course not same as Public folders.