I am a huge fan of Dropbox. I have all my personal and professional files on it. I paid for the full hosting plan
But something is broken on Dropbox: link sharing. It is too painful to share links. And i share many many links. Many many times a day.
Today they announced a "new" feature for easier sharing which in nearly no way improves the link sharing experience. As a matter of fact it makes it even more complicated
Let me illustrate
A. On Dropbox site
1. you click on the "link" symbol
2. it then opens a new page. With no indication except a unique link in your browser
3. then you have to point your mouse to the link
4.Then you have to copy the link by right click or by Ctrl+C
That's 4 STEPS to get the link of a file or folder. 4 DAMN STEPS
Why can't Dropbox, just generate the link from step 1, open it in a light box right on this page with an AUTO COPY feature when my mouse gets there. That would be 2 STEPS. It could even be 1 STEP if by Clicking "Link" it was automatically copied with an Confirmation overlay this is copied
WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE IT REALLY SIMPLE?
This is so ridiculously long and painful. What's really surprising is that they used to have on the document page a small box in the page with a short Dropbox link, ready to be auto copied.
WHY DID THEY REMOVE THIS?
B. From The Desktop
This is worse because in addition to A, above, you have to
1. Right click on the document
2. Wait for your browser to open
Then go though 3 and 4
Hey, Dropbox: ever heard of a Desktop Clipboard? We download Dropbox on our desktop, right? Let me right click as you offer from any offer > then auto generate AND auto copy the link to the Clipboard.
Use Growl or whatever you want to confirm me that this is copied.
That would be 2 steps. That's all
You know how i solve this problem right now? i make a screenshot with Skitch and get the link copied right there. I know this is stupid. But much faster
BOTTOM LINE
Why can't they make this happen? Oh! that's because this is complicated or difficult? Well that's why you raised a Gazillion dollars no?
DROPBOX PLEASE MAKE LINK SHARING REALLY SIMPLE!