

The Dropbox Shared Folder API Beta - ivankirigin
https://dropboxapi.wufoo.com/forms/dropbox-shared-folder-api-beta-contact-info/

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usaar333
Hi, I'm an API engineer at Dropbox. Happy to field any questions you guys may
have!

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dmw7752
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!

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daniel_levine
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!

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dgorges
I wanted this natively supported for ever. For now, I use Hazel* to sync every
change inside an dropbox folder into an app folder. It works, but you know...

* [http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel](http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel)

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usaar333
May I ask what app you are using? It seems that the app has been set up to use
App Folders, when, for your use case, it could be using the more liberal Full
Dropbox or File Types permissions.

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vladgur
Does this mean we would soon be able to tell who initiated the sharing with
somebody else? or who updated something shared?

Please say yes, please say yes :)

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usaar333
> Who initiated the sharing with somebody else?

This is supported while someone is an in the invited state, but the initial
version likely won't support full auditing to answer the question "How did
user X become a member of this folder?", though this is in our plans. Could
you explain your use case?

> Who updated something shared?

Yes. And each revision in the revision history will include information on who
updated the file.

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vladgur
Thanks, I think your second answers covers my use cases. Let me explain them:

Currently, file's metadata has no ownership information. If I see it in my
files or my deltas, it could be because either I created or somebody else
created them in a shared folder or somebody else shared a folder with me and i
accepted.

In other words, if user X adds a file to a shared a folder with user Y, when
User Y requests for deltas from the API, I cant tell if the User Y is the
creater of these files.

It looks like Id be able navigate the revision to figure out who created the
file. or who placed it in the shared folder, so this api is certainly a
welcome addition

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ksec
Great more features are coming out from Dropbox. I am still hoping their April
announcement will include a huge increase in storage capacity.

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sintaxi
Very excited by this.

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carlosdp
Excellent! I have wanted this for a long time.

