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Dropbox as a CMS - DropPages

100 points by sebkomianos 16y ago

podperson 16y ago
Darn someone beat me to it. Nice idea and it seems well executed.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
quinndupont 16y ago
Pretty cool, similar to https://www.views.fm/ https://www.views.fm/ (or at least, does the same thing as views.fm for me)
peterzakin 16y ago
i thought the dropbox api only allowed authentication calls on mobile apps?
- varenc 16y ago
  Unfortunately the documentation on the site only describes it in this context, but thats not a limitation.
breck 16y ago
Awesome. We built a POC that did the same thing a little over a year ago. We got our moms to use it and they loved it for updating their own sites. There's definitely a good business model there. Back then we did it the hard way basically making our own Dropbox API. We had a Windows server running with the Dropbox client installed. You would share a folder with our Dropbox username and our script would auto accept it, and then we ran rsync to sync up the Windows folders with our web servers. Back then getting the Linux client to run was a bit of a pain which is why we went the windows route for that part of the site.
gbog 16y ago
Interesting. Would this tool be a way to work around censorship and control? I mean, only the naive can think there will be no increase in censorship on the net. My guess is all govs are brainstorming a LOT right now, including the new govs in Middle-east. We need to fix this. Something like droppages could be a piece of the puzzle, no?
dpcan 16y ago
The website has to be served via DropBox too then, correct? So, DropBox is the web host too for the static site?
- lreeves 16y ago
  No, they synchronize a selected folder from your Dropbox account and then host it externally.
rebel9 16y ago
Great idea. I'm really curious how you set up the backend though?
mattdeboard 16y ago
Are we as a web development community running headlong into another Twitter scenario, where we build a huge ecosystem around a company's API only to have it yanked out from under us at some indeterminate point in the future? Serious question, not a subtle accusation.
auxbuss 16y ago
Now I have a working droppage -- thanks Dave for sorting my idiocy -- I am both impressed and enamoured by the potential use of this idea. Someone is bound to open source something similar to allow you to self host, thus bypassing droppage's revenue model to some extent, but for non-techs (or just-a-bit techs), this is stellar. For simple speed to up and running a kosher, reliably backed up web-site, this is hard to beat.

100 points by sebkomianos 16y ago

podperson 16y ago

Darn someone beat me to it. Nice idea and it seems well executed.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

quinndupont 16y ago

Pretty cool, similar to https://www.views.fm/ https://www.views.fm/ (or at least, does the same thing as views.fm for me)

peterzakin 16y ago

i thought the dropbox api only allowed authentication calls on mobile apps?

varenc 16y ago
Unfortunately the documentation on the site only describes it in this context, but thats not a limitation.

breck 16y ago

Awesome. We built a POC that did the same thing a little over a year ago. We got our moms to use it and they loved it for updating their own sites. There's definitely a good business model there. Back then we did it the hard way basically making our own Dropbox API. We had a Windows server running with the Dropbox client installed. You would share a folder with our Dropbox username and our script would auto accept it, and then we ran rsync to sync up the Windows folders with our web servers. Back then getting the Linux client to run was a bit of a pain which is why we went the windows route for that part of the site.

gbog 16y ago

Interesting. Would this tool be a way to work around censorship and control? I mean, only the naive can think there will be no increase in censorship on the net. My guess is all govs are brainstorming a LOT right now, including the new govs in Middle-east. We need to fix this. Something like droppages could be a piece of the puzzle, no?

dpcan 16y ago

The website has to be served via DropBox too then, correct? So, DropBox is the web host too for the static site?

lreeves 16y ago
No, they synchronize a selected folder from your Dropbox account and then host it externally.

rebel9 16y ago

Great idea. I'm really curious how you set up the backend though?

mattdeboard 16y ago

Are we as a web development community running headlong into another Twitter scenario, where we build a huge ecosystem around a company's API only to have it yanked out from under us at some indeterminate point in the future? Serious question, not a subtle accusation.

auxbuss 16y ago

Now I have a working droppage -- thanks Dave for sorting my idiocy -- I am both impressed and enamoured by the potential use of this idea. Someone is bound to open source something similar to allow you to self host, thus bypassing droppage's revenue model to some extent, but for non-techs (or just-a-bit techs), this is stellar. For simple speed to up and running a kosher, reliably backed up web-site, this is hard to beat.