

Dropbox Chooser - goronbjorn
https://blog.dropbox.com/2012/11/meet-the-dropbox-chooser-a-new-way-to-add-stuff-from-dropbox/

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nikcub
When we did this at Omnidrive we worked with other online storage providers
and web app prodivers to do it in a standard way so that instead of 'Upload
from Dropbox' you could specify any online service that implements the
interface.

for eg. the upload form could let you pick your Google Docs, or another
account.

We called it WebFS. I think the idea was too early and most of us ended up
running out of money or being sold.

I'd like to see the same idea implemented here again. Web app developers can
implement an upload button that can open any URL. Similar to WebDAV but for
web apps.

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uams
<https://www.filepicker.io> ?

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bane
I was kinda hoping this was official support for multiple accounts.

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nacs
I was hoping for the same but this would mean people could register dozens of
accounts to get a lot more storage.

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bane
I have a paid work and a private dropbox. There's _got_ to be some way they
could let you add as many paid accounts as needed and one free account.

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zapt02
I have two accounts also, share a folder between them to sync. You have to pay
double if you have a lot of data but with the new cheaper 100GB plans it
doesn't burn a hole through your pocket.

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jpsirois
Interesting, similar to <https://www.filepicker.io/>

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brettcvz
Yup, it's great to see that Dropbox shares our vision of helping connect
online storage to online applications, so the spirit is the right one.

Our goal is for users to be able to connect directly to their online content,
and we're working with Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Skydrive, Facebook and
others to make this happen.

~~~
johnrob
Any project that lasts longer than a few months inevitably encounters some
form of duplication from elsewhere. There should be a Metcalfe-esque law for
that.

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romain_dardour
Being chased by a 800 pound gorilla is always scary. Hang on guys, I love your
product and I'm sure you can embrace and extend :)

~~~
brettcvz
Love the enthusiasm! To us, anything that helps makes products work more
seamlessly together online is a win for the web and the world we want to see.

It also seems like Dropbox is encouraging a different use case, in that the
links they provide by default are Dropbox share links that route back to
Dropbox, and even the direct ones expire after 4 hours. With Filepicker.io, we
want to be a more complete filesystem solution, offering things like store to
S3, read/write on the URLs, conversion, etc.

To the cloud!

~~~
tarr11
Yup. You guys are doing a great job, I don't think of this as competitive.
Image conversion is brilliant.

Keep it up!

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tomkin
My immediate impression was this was going to be a way to switch Dropbox
accounts. That would have been super cool. Not that having a Dropbox API for
selecting files is bad.

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SurfScore
I do love how a guy from box added this link....

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goronbjorn
Just staying on top of things ;)

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serge2k
I was looking into Dropbox integration in a Web applications just last night.
Fantastic!

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jedberg
I was hoping this would be a way for me to choose which files I sync to which
machines.

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minikomi
Heartily agree with this. I don't need my library of vintage drum machine
samples at work, but would love to have my personal txt file wiki along for
the ride.

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steveh73
Can't you do this already? Maybe you just need to update your dropbox client.

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minikomi
Indeed I can! Awesome!

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nopinsight
This is a brilliant move by Dropbox. It is now becoming part of the Internet
fabric and, if the move is successful, it will likely remain dominant--at
least essential--for a very long time.

Now if anyone knows how I can invest in it as soon as possible, I'd appreciate
to know. (Email in profile.)

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jayfuerstenberg
It's worth noting that Dropbox Chooser is a javascript tool and intended for
web applications.

Native applications might still find it easier to directly access the dropbox
folder (no need to know the user's account credentials and faster syncing than
through the API with its rate limits).

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NirDremer
Google Drive exposed something similar few months ago.
[http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2012/08/allowing-
use...](http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2012/08/allowing-user-to-
select-google-drive.html)

Trello was amongst the firsts to add file picker support (great feature we use
frequently). Funny to see that the first player Dropbox picks is Asana ..

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mayneack
Now they should get a "download to dropbox" method so it would be just another
option instead of "save link as"

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nodata
O'Reilly offers this. <http://shop.oreilly.com/category/customer-
service/dropbox.do>

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mayneack
Yeah, there's some services like this, but most of them have size caps (or in
that case, deal with small files anyway). While it would be great for browsing
on my phone, I'd really take advantage of this for downloading large files
that would take a long time to download otherwise (especially since they'd
then have to get uploaded by dropbox).

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powrtoch
I'm all for making it easier to work with the cloud, but... is this
application really all that useful, considering that the whole concept of the
Dropbox app is that all your Dropbox files are constantly kept in sync on your
local machine?

I think of this as the very essence of what Dropbox does, are there really
very many situations where local copies would be unavailable?

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ceejayoz
> I think of this as the very essence of what Dropbox does, are there really
> very many situations where local copies would be unavailable?

I can think of a lot of situations where the local file is a gigabyte or more
and I'd rather not sit around letting the web form upload it.

With this, I can submit immediately, and the site can handle the heavy lifting
on their backend. I get to wander off and do something productive.

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yarrel
Is this a web intent?

