4 ms·

This sounds like the exact feature I've been desperately looking for, for quite some time now, watching Microsoft discontinue online-only files in Onedrive beca

by bobsoap 10y ago

This sounds like the exact feature I've been desperately looking for, for quite some time now, watching Microsoft discontinue online-only files in Onedrive because "it confused customers", and shaking my head at the blatant lack of this kind of thing everywhere... Until just recently, when I found odrive[1]. Not affiliated with them in any way, just a fan - if you don't want to wait until Dropbox decides to launch this publicly, check it out. It works with Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive/CreativeCloud/what-have-you and does exactly what Dropbox Infinite promises to do, except that it's seasoned, working, practically bug-free (that I can tell), and, well, available now. [1] https://www.odrive.com/ https://www.odrive.com/

degenerate 10y ago
$99/year ($8.25/mo) to have "Premium" which offers the option to leave files in the cloud and sync on demand. This is too much money to gain a feature addition. No thanks.
- bobsoap 10y ago
  Interesting... I just checked and apparently I'm on a grandfathered free plan that can still unsync. Didn't know they changed it. For me, it's still more than just a feature addition though - I use odrive for all my cloud storage accounts. It's all under one roof. Your mileage may vary, of course.
- pmontra 10y ago
  Yeah, only if customers pay that for me and as long as they pay. I don't have that many files on my own.
JBiserkov 10y ago
Microsoft had what they called "placeholders" and it worked great, but it did confuse some users who looked for a file, saw it was "there" and happily went offline. Only to find it was only a placeholder. Furthermore, on devices with limited storage (phones, tablets) even the small size of the placeholders becomes a problem when the number of files is big enough. So Microsoft temporarily removed the placeholders functionality, promising to bring it back in the near future using some new (at the time not yet invented?) technique that would solve the problem.
- manigandham 10y ago
  Onedrive had similar same icon overlays to notify if the file was really downloaded or not. Dropbox is going to run into the same problem with placeholders where people go offline thinking they have the entire file.
  - SolarNet 10y ago
    This is a tools problem. People need to know how to use the tools in a business or let them go. You don't keep carpenter around who blames power tools not working the way he expects when he never charges the batteries. Dropbox's response could be, "Hey we have training seminars for that".
- amatwl 10y ago
  App compatibility was also an issue with OneDrive placeholders (some apps couldn't handle placeholders). I wonder if Dropbox is going to run into similar issues with Project Infinite/
- derefr 10y ago
  Ignoring OneDrive et al, Windows has had this built in for a long long time: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc960878.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc960878.aspx. There's even a little Explorer-native file overlay for such files (a black clock): https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030827-00/?p=42783 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030827-00/?p=... I wonder if Dropbox could just make use of this (e.g. by registering itself as an HSM backend provider to Windows somehow) rather than doing its own logic.

by bobsoap 10y ago

degenerate 10y ago

$99/year ($8.25/mo) to have "Premium" which offers the option to leave files in the cloud and sync on demand. This is too much money to gain a feature addition. No thanks.

bobsoap 10y ago
Interesting... I just checked and apparently I'm on a grandfathered free plan that can still unsync. Didn't know they changed it. For me, it's still more than just a feature addition though - I use odrive for all my cloud storage accounts. It's all under one roof. Your mileage may vary, of course.
pmontra 10y ago
Yeah, only if customers pay that for me and as long as they pay. I don't have that many files on my own.

JBiserkov 10y ago

Microsoft had what they called "placeholders" and it worked great, but it did confuse some users who looked for a file, saw it was "there" and happily went offline. Only to find it was only a placeholder. Furthermore, on devices with limited storage (phones, tablets) even the small size of the placeholders becomes a problem when the number of files is big enough. So Microsoft temporarily removed the placeholders functionality, promising to bring it back in the near future using some new (at the time not yet invented?) technique that would solve the problem.

manigandham 10y ago
Onedrive had similar same icon overlays to notify if the file was really downloaded or not. Dropbox is going to run into the same problem with placeholders where people go offline thinking they have the entire file.
- SolarNet 10y ago
  This is a tools problem. People need to know how to use the tools in a business or let them go. You don't keep carpenter around who blames power tools not working the way he expects when he never charges the batteries. Dropbox's response could be, "Hey we have training seminars for that".
amatwl 10y ago
App compatibility was also an issue with OneDrive placeholders (some apps couldn't handle placeholders). I wonder if Dropbox is going to run into similar issues with Project Infinite/
derefr 10y ago
Ignoring OneDrive et al, Windows has had this built in for a long long time: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc960878.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc960878.aspx. There's even a little Explorer-native file overlay for such files (a black clock): https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030827-00/?p=42783 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030827-00/?p=... I wonder if Dropbox could just make use of this (e.g. by registering itself as an HSM backend provider to Windows somehow) rather than doing its own logic.