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Forum Discussion
Link breaks on file update. How to avoid?
Sharing links to files that may be updated is an important functionality. There are several discussions on the subject (at least this one and this one). Unfortunately, the problem persists (and these...
Megan
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi Christian D., how are you today?
Your comments on shared links have been quite helpful, and I will do everything I can to ensure that your voice is heard.
Before I do, allow me to ask: you mentioned that you keep working on the private report, after sharing the file. From the example you mentioned, it sounds like you have two files: one in a folder public/report.pdf and one private/report.pdf. Is that the case or you're talking about the same file?
It's also interesting, that you use the terminal app, can you let me know more about that?
If not, feel free to help me understand a bit more here.
Let me know more!
Hi Megan,
I am a tad puzzled by your reply. My post is clear. Yes there are two files, and any computer scientists knows what a terminal is.
Dropbox uses versioning I imagine? svn? git? Well, think of my example as a low-tech version of this. I have two copies of the same file, one that is in a state acceptable for public reading (in the "public" folder), one with internal comments (in the "private" folder), evolving towards the next public-ready and copied to the "public" folder when it is.
I use the terminal because I am an old school computer scientist who thinks it's quite long to click all over the place to copy-paste files. Unix and Windows have similar applications, if I can even call them that.
- Jay
Hi Christian D., in general, it depends on how the OS performs the copy/paste function. If a file is dragged into the location in Explorer/Finder, it should technically overwrite the file and retain the shared link. However, this might not be case, as you've discovered when using the command line.
The best way to ensure that the shared link isn't deleted would be to upload the file to the site in the same location, which would update the file online.
Hi Jay,
Thanks for your input. It's consistent with what I read on the other threads. I still believe it's unduly more complicated than if dropbox did work around these quirks. Of course, existing users might have adapted, and maybe dropbox developers perceive the fix to cost more than the potential benefits.
But the use case I was considering here would have allowed convincing some departments to use dropbox links rather than the cumbersome platform we have now. But if we have to go online and double check the links all the time, then dropbox links are not useful in that specific instance.
Any update on this? When, on a website, I create a link <a href="./some_file.pdf">The PDF</a>, the link points to "some_file.pdf", regardless how I update it on the server. Now, I'd like href to point to "some_file.pdf" somewhere on my dropbox, regardless of how I update the said file. Seems reasonable, no?
