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Comment by cookrn | Hacker News Reader

I really, really would love to give this a try but am totally turned off by the requested "read and modify everything" Dropbox permissions. Although the Harp application does a really good job explaining the limitations of the Dropbox permissions API after a denial during the Dropbox authorization step, I'm still not comfortable. I hope it's true that OP is working with Dropbox to improve the situation as stated :)

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Same here. Have a new project I'm starting next week that this would be perfect with -- a small site with several collaborators that's not worthy of a full CMS, and everyone involved loves and uses Dropbox already.

But Dropbox is my lifeblood -- the most-used tool in my toolbox. I have everything important in there. There is simply no way I can grant access to full thing, even if you promise to "play nice". It's simply too risky.

Fix that, and you'll be getting $10/mo. from me in no time.

Hi there, Harp Op here.

When we started out building Harp we wanted to provided an unparalleled user experience and not compromise on features. Collaboration was a must, after all software is written by people and teams.

Asking for full access was not something we wanted to do, but something that was necessary to get that feature and make Harp Platform a more compelling.

The Harp Platform is not build on Dropbox, it is build with Dropbox support and we can introduce other methods for syncing files and content. Github support is will underway.

What you've built looks great and I totally understand your rationale. It was just _scary_ to see that pop up. Did not think of the method described by @fjabre's comment and its children though (one of your sibling comments). Maybe that could be mentioned on the warning page in the Harp app after a denial from the initial Dropbox authorization too?

maybe I'm missing something but why not just signup for another dropbox account and use that one for this instead?

Yes, this is one option to work around Dropbox’s limited permission options here. You can create another Dropbox account and link that to Harp Platform. Then, share your application folder with your main Dropbox account and match the directory structure (put it inside harp.io/apps/), and continue using the Harp Platform normally.

Ohhh! Gotcha! I'll do that!

As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong, please!) there's no easy way to "switch" Dropbox accounts on your computer, is there?

This is something you can easily do. By creating a second account and sharing it with your primary account you can essentially create a sand-box.

By sharing with your primary account there is no need to have a second Dropbox client or switch clients.

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