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Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

forums.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#11

Post by StephenFalken »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #9
StephenFalken wrote: post #8

The Public/ folder is probably the most useful feature of Dropbox. It is totally user friendly and integrated into the desktop. You just have to drop a file in the folder and get the public url from the drop-down menu. It couldn't get much easier than that. And now it will be phased out. Really sad news. I guess it's about time to try Google Drive.

If I may refer you to a previous comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115879

Well, now the "get link" drop-down menu item sends you to a webpage, where you can finally click "Download". It's a total waste of time. The fast workflow of the Public/ folder will be gone.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#12

Post by zapt02 »

This is an outrage.

The sharing functionality is not the same at all since it gives every file an obfuscated name, making it impossible to link directly in an effective fashion.

This feature is the only thing that has kept me from switching to a competing provider (Sugarsync, GDrive).

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#13

Post by mkhattab »

_delirium wrote: post #3
mkhattab wrote: post #2

Well, this sucks. Are they removing this feature to cut down on bandwidth? Or perhaps piracy?

From a comment further down, it sounds like it's due to considering it now redundant, and not wanting to support two ways of sharing files. The original way to share Dropbox files over the web was to drop them in your Public folder, but now you can right-click on any file, in any folder, and generate a shareable link to it. So they're going with that as the new sharing mechanism, and phasing out the "drop it in your…

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.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#14

Post by atarian »

Cancel wrote: post #10
atarian wrote: post #7

They are NOT removing the ability to link to files in your Dropbox. Just the Public folder itself, which is no longer needed since any file can now be shared with a public link. EDIT: And for those of you concerned by any impact on using Dropbox as a CDN, there shouldn't be any issues. The links that Dropbox generates from your files have a bit of chrome (a preview of the contents of the file and a couple of buttons)…

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).

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#16

Post by parfe »

mkhattab wrote: post #13
_delirium wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a comment further down, it sounds like it's due to considering it now redundant, and not wanting to support two ways of sharing files. The original way to share Dropbox files over the web was to drop them in your Public folder, but now you can right-click on any file, in any folder, and generate a shareable link to it. So they're going with that as the new sharing mechanism, and phasing out the "drop it in your…

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/

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#18

Post by bane »

parfe wrote: post #16
mkhattab wrote: post #13

Earlier 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/

If only Dropbox had a folder, perhaps already called Public, that you could organize your shared crap into...

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#19

Post by bane »

atarian wrote: post #14
Cancel wrote: post #10

Earlier 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).

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.

From DB's perspective this is most likely to force additional eyeballs onto their product by forcing them to hit a webpage before download, but it's a lousy user experience for all involved. To the receiver of the link DB just looks like an old fashioned file-sharing site a la megaupload and not something special.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#20

Post by mparlane »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #9
StephenFalken wrote: post #8

The Public/ folder is probably the most useful feature of Dropbox. It is totally user friendly and integrated into the desktop. You just have to drop a file in the folder and get the public url from the drop-down menu. It couldn't get much easier than that. And now it will be phased out. Really sad news. I guess it's about time to try Google Drive.

If I may refer you to a previous comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115879

Why do people seem to think the two different links are the same? One is direct, one is a splash page :(
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