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Comment by usaar333 | Hacker News Reader

Hi, I'm an API engineer at Dropbox. Happy to field any questions you guys may have!

Hey! I've watched some of the videos on all of dropbox's other apis and think I have a pretty good understanding about how developers would use them. I'm a little fuzzy on this one and was wondering if you could give an example or two of how a developer might leverage this.

Thanks!

There are a bunch of different use cases we have thought about.

Perhaps my favorite is a mirrored workspace. An app like Asana could use the Shared Folder API to create a Dropbox shared folder that mirrors an Asana project. As you add or subtract users, those changes affect both. Similarly files added via the Dropbox folder appear in Asana and files added in Asana are instantly put into your Dropbox. A video conference has similar concepts.

But there are tons more and we'd love to hear ideas from other folks!

I am not sure if this is a share API feature, but it is a problem I am struggling with.

We have an app using sandbox app folder(we don't want to mess with user's full dropbox file system), but then problem is that users can not cooperate within a share folder.

Here is what I'd like to have: A user shares a folder within app folder, then when another user accepts the request, then 1) keep the same name and same path strictly, create intermediary paths if necessary; 2) don't proceed if conflicts happen.

Please let me know if it is already doable in current state.

Unfortunately, as you noticed, it is not possible to share folders within a sandboxed app folder. We plan to remove this restriction in the coming months.

Here are my current Dropbox pet peeves:

- You can't share an arbitrary folder with someone, only a top-level one

- You can't share app folders

- App folders are buried in the Apps folder (duh). So, you can't use an arbitrary one with an app

Does this address any of these? I think all three issues could be really elegantly solved like this: do away with the concept of an app folder, and similarly with the top-level sharing restriction. Instead, give me an access control dialog for any folder. This would let me share with both apps and other users.

> - You can't share an arbitrary folder with someone, only a top-level one

You can share any folder arbitrarily deep. What we do not allow is sharing subfolders of already-shared folders.

> You can't share app folders

We plan to remove this restriction in the coming months.

> App folders are buried in the Apps folder

We are exploring how to better handle App folders, but the sharing API will not address this.

> This would let me share with both apps and other users.

Great point. Note that apps with full Dropbox or file type access already can share data with each other, just not two apps with only App Folder permission.

Are there specific (App Folder) apps you wish to share content between?

I'm a huge fan of Braces (http://braces.io/). It solves the how-do-I-get-my-site-files served problem perfectly. But I'm also a huge fan of Dropbox sharing, and it's sad that I can't collaborate on my Braces sites with my friends.

Brace.io dev here. We're working on Brace Teams which provides collaboration features (and currently requires full dropbox access). We would be happy to let you try it out. I'll send you an email.

Also you linked to our not-so-secret staging site. We'll be putting up access restriction there soon. Please use http://brace.io.

you'll be able to soon! Cole is very happy as well!

> We plan to remove this restriction in the coming months

This is great news.

bit confused - you're asking for an API key? Wouldn't I be getting one from Dropbox?

Yep. The only thing required for the form is an email so we can get in touch with more stuff. For folks who already have apps we are curious what they are. Also we'll eventually use the App Key to grant access to folks for the beta.

Is this similar to BitTorrent Sync API?

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