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Excellent. Now drop in some version control (mercurial for my own preference :)) and we are onto a winner. Dropbox is great for syncing between your developme

by ErrantX 16y ago

Excellent. Now drop in some version control (mercurial for my own preference :)) and we are onto a winner. Dropbox is great for syncing between your development machines, but version control is essential for deployment and team development. Combining the two is really powerful.

rbxbx 16y ago
Dropbox does have version control built in, albeit not in the same way which you speak of. Pretty good way to get people unfamiliar with version control to see the utility of it, though :)
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Actually no; Dropbox and version control are different ends of the same problem spectrum. Using Dropbox for version control is non-optimal, and Dropbox VC is more backend/invisible to it's use case. Dropbox is about syncing, as fast as possible and in real time - it is designed for multiple computers but only one concurrent use. So it is really for the individual. Versioning is a form of snap shot that is designed to allow multiple concurrent work (and has benefits for deployment, releases, bug tracking etc.) The vision should be to see them working together IMO :)
  - nrub 16y ago
    Dropbox definitely has version control, you are able to move back and forth between different versions of a single saved document, that's definition enough. It's just not meant for fine grained control like Mercurial or other DVCS. CouchDB has version control, would you ever use that?
patrickk 16y ago
It would be cool if you could share screens from two people not in the same room too.
sudont 16y ago
Another "feature" would be the ability to use it without dropbox--save functionality removed. I don't have my dropbox password handy, so the app is completely unusable. (HTML"5" database/ javascript localstorage?)
- abraham 16y ago
  The Dropbox API supports the standard OAuth web flow which just requires you to have an active session on dropbox.com. I put in a feature request so hopefully soon the extension wont ask for passwords anymore.
  - Sephr 16y ago
    As a workaround, you could just have a hidden dropbox.com frame.
    - abraham 16y ago
      As a work around for what? How does having a hidden dropbox.com frame stop the extension from asking for passwords?
      - Sephr 16y ago
        As a solution to the bug you mentioned ("The Dropbox API supports the standard OAuth web flow which just requires you to have an active session on dropbox.com"), where you say that you need an active session on dropbox.com to use Dropbox's OAuth API. Judging by your response, it's clear that there isn't a bug, and you either just don't know how OAuth works or you don't understand what an active session is. OAuth doesn't require an active session on a website, and an active session is having a page loaded in your browser.
        abraham 16y ago
        > Judging by your response, it's clear that there isn't a bug, and you either just don't know how OAuth works or you don't understand what an active session is. OAuth doesn't require an active session on a website, and an active session is having a page loaded in your browser. The OAuth web flow requires an active session on dropbox.com. Without an active session Dropbox can not verify who the user is. You still didn't answer my question about how a frame would help. Iframes should never be used to to embed OAuth provider authorization pages and embedding dropbox.com in general would be pretty useless if the user does not have an active session open. As far as active sessions go dropbox.com is going to have two kinds authenticated and anonymous. Since we are clearly talking about access to users Dropbox accounts the only type of active session that would be useful would be authenticated.
davej 16y ago
Sounds like Cloud9: http://run.cloud9ide.com/ http://run.cloud9ide.com/
JulianMorrison 16y ago
They should hook it up to github.
BerislavLopac 16y ago
How difficult it is to create a repo on the folder in your Dropbox? (The answer, of course, is "it isn't"...)
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Yep, exactly what I do. But it would be nice to run "hg commit -m xxx && hg push" from within this extension. Then I could commit on the move :)

by ErrantX 16y ago

rbxbx 16y ago

Dropbox does have version control built in, albeit not in the same way which you speak of. Pretty good way to get people unfamiliar with version control to see the utility of it, though :)

ErrantX 16y ago
Actually no; Dropbox and version control are different ends of the same problem spectrum. Using Dropbox for version control is non-optimal, and Dropbox VC is more backend/invisible to it's use case. Dropbox is about syncing, as fast as possible and in real time - it is designed for multiple computers but only one concurrent use. So it is really for the individual. Versioning is a form of snap shot that is designed to allow multiple concurrent work (and has benefits for deployment, releases, bug tracking etc.) The vision should be to see them working together IMO :)
- nrub 16y ago
  Dropbox definitely has version control, you are able to move back and forth between different versions of a single saved document, that's definition enough. It's just not meant for fine grained control like Mercurial or other DVCS. CouchDB has version control, would you ever use that?

patrickk 16y ago

It would be cool if you could share screens from two people not in the same room too.

sudont 16y ago

Another "feature" would be the ability to use it without dropbox--save functionality removed. I don't have my dropbox password handy, so the app is completely unusable. (HTML"5" database/ javascript localstorage?)

abraham 16y ago
The Dropbox API supports the standard OAuth web flow which just requires you to have an active session on dropbox.com. I put in a feature request so hopefully soon the extension wont ask for passwords anymore.
- Sephr 16y ago
  As a workaround, you could just have a hidden dropbox.com frame.
  - abraham 16y ago
    As a work around for what? How does having a hidden dropbox.com frame stop the extension from asking for passwords?
    - Sephr 16y ago
      As a solution to the bug you mentioned ("The Dropbox API supports the standard OAuth web flow which just requires you to have an active session on dropbox.com"), where you say that you need an active session on dropbox.com to use Dropbox's OAuth API. Judging by your response, it's clear that there isn't a bug, and you either just don't know how OAuth works or you don't understand what an active session is. OAuth doesn't require an active session on a website, and an active session is having a page loaded in your browser.
      - abraham 16y ago
        > Judging by your response, it's clear that there isn't a bug, and you either just don't know how OAuth works or you don't understand what an active session is. OAuth doesn't require an active session on a website, and an active session is having a page loaded in your browser. The OAuth web flow requires an active session on dropbox.com. Without an active session Dropbox can not verify who the user is. You still didn't answer my question about how a frame would help. Iframes should never be used to to embed OAuth provider authorization pages and embedding dropbox.com in general would be pretty useless if the user does not have an active session open. As far as active sessions go dropbox.com is going to have two kinds authenticated and anonymous. Since we are clearly talking about access to users Dropbox accounts the only type of active session that would be useful would be authenticated.

davej 16y ago

Sounds like Cloud9: http://run.cloud9ide.com/ http://run.cloud9ide.com/

JulianMorrison 16y ago

They should hook it up to github.

BerislavLopac 16y ago

How difficult it is to create a repo on the folder in your Dropbox? (The answer, of course, is "it isn't"...)

ErrantX 16y ago
Yep, exactly what I do. But it would be nice to run "hg commit -m xxx && hg push" from within this extension. Then I could commit on the move :)