You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Ending support of public folder
Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.
---------
As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Publ...
- LGM - the issue is that people are abusing it and causing issues for everybody by getting the Dropbox domains blacklisted which cause emails to fail and downloads to be blocked by firewalls etc.
In terms of changing the extension, sorry, no idea how you would do that!
This is my first post in this new consolidated thread. In December I posted this brief one:
"Shame on you, Dropbox, for letting down your loyal paying base of users in such cavalier fashion."
I recently had a reminder from DB of the imminent catastrophe when my many hundreds of links created as a Pro user will no longer be accessible. Many, probably most, are video forum posts to help others, with tutorials etc.
I'd appreciate a summary of the latest practical advice on a few technical points please so that I can start preparing. I'm not a programmer or 'techie' but use a macro-writing tool (Macro Express Pro) for many purposes. I'm hoping that I can automate some aspects of the inevitable work due to DB's appalling decision to invalidate my links.
Q1: Is the most sensible first step to make a new folder called say 'Previously Public' and copy all my Public content to it?
Q2: I've seen various suggestions within the 60 pages of this thread about changing the syntax of the resulting links that will be assigned to these. But it seems with occasional contradictions or footnotes about unreliability. What is the latest consensus from experienced users please? I want to get as close to my previous modus operandi as possible. Namely, include a link in a forum post to an image, PDF, video, zip, etc, and be confident that forum users or email recipients will be able to open it. IOW, the no-brainer approach for which I'm currently paying.
Any other practical advice would be much appreciated please.
Terry, UK.
Terry P. wrote:
I'd appreciate a summary of the latest practical advice on a few technical points please so that I can start preparing. I'm not a programmer or 'techie' but use a macro-writing tool (Macro Express Pro) for many purposes. I'm hoping that I can automate some aspects of the inevitable work due to DB's appalling decision to invalidate my links.
All you can do to protect existing Public Folder links, is to re-link each and every one of them (if you can) using the new type of DB link. This is the real Dropbox crime - not to grandfather the existing links out there.
Q1: Is the most sensible first step to make a new folder called say 'Previously Public' and copy all my Public content to it?
No - your existing Public folder is still a valid DB folder, but now it's just like any other. IOW you must get a url for any item in it you want to link to, then change the end from ?dl=0 to ?raw=1
Q2: I've seen various suggestions within the 60 pages of this thread about changing the syntax of the resulting links that will be assigned to these. But it seems with occasional contradictions or footnotes about unreliability. What is the latest consensus from experienced users please? I want to get as close to my previous modus operandi as possible. Namely, include a link in a forum post to an image, PDF, video, zip, etc, and be confident that forum users or email recipients will be able to open it. IOW, the no-brainer approach for which I'm currently paying.
As mentioned, change the ending ?dl=0 (which forces users to go to the DB site to download the content) to ?raw=1 which - on the majority of sites that allow it - will embed the content directly into a webpage just like the old Public links did.
Any other practical advice would be much appreciated please.
Terry, UK.
- Thanks Chris.
I remember I chose dropbox when it first came out because it seemed new, shiny and radical. I also remember seeing lots of dead forum images from stores like photobucket and thinking "I gotta choose wisely - something with integrity that'll last."
Well, the inneviatble has happened and years of forum posting are full of dead links. Either they become:
a) a victim of being a success in a free-market economy (read: advertising, revenue, boards, corporate needs over customers) or
b) a success of being a victim of a free market economy (where altruism, creativity and humanoty never prevails!)
Rant over. Soultion: cut the cord. Sort your own home server (lot easier than it sounds - essentially just leaving a PC on 24hours) + download this app I made + voila! Your very own dropbox out of other peoples' hands.
https://sites.google.com/view/magoarcade/software/whosebox
Of course they will remove this, because they don't like anything that disagrees with them.
- Thanks Chris
- Why do not you keep the existing links in the public folder and close the "copy public link" function, why break that link. WHY WHY?
