Dropbox

I started a thread on acorn.networking wondering if anyone was looking at integrating this into RISC OS as its very cross platform?
www.dropbox.com

There’s an interesting article on a security aspect of Dropbox here

I have to admit that as my usage of RO has become increasingly virtual and distributed, the concept of having different files in different places is becoming increasingly irritating.

I was thinking of a hypothetical CloudFS, but I haven’t yet tried using DropBox on a machine running an emulator to see if it would be viable!

I suspect a Google-style Sync would be more sensible than a copy to the cloud every time a file got changed.

the concept of having different files in different places is becoming increasingly irritating.

This. A dropbox (or similar) client for RISC OS would be a very interesting thing to have, and is totally within the realm of possibility.

I tried to make a “mini-app” that was just a link to a URL file to access my Dropbox, but to no avail. NetSurf cannot process it at all, it just hangs on a blank screen with “fetching, processing, fetching” at the bottom. This is with JS on. It does even less with JS off.

I, too, agree that a DropBox app for RISC OS would be a MAJOR boon to the platform. I believe the API for DropBox is available, but alas, my coding skills, being negligible, do not enable me to help! A financial contribution, on the other hand…

I believe the API for DropBox is available

Yes, I had a quick look at it last night and it looks like it’s all there. It’ll be a bit fiddly from a RISC OS perspective since using HTTP + SSL from a module isn’t very straightforward, but if you can get past that hurdle then getting and putting files looks pretty straightforward.

The sources to the Linux client are also available, which is nice. Using that as a starting point may be easier than starting from scratch (their official SDKs cover a bunch of programming languages/platforms but not plain C or C++). I also have a feeling there’s a secret API they use to allow the server to notify the client immediately when something changes, instead of the client having to poll – but whether that would be in the Linux client sources, and whether they’d allow other apps to use it, I’m not sure.

It’ll be a bit fiddly from a RISC OS perspective since using HTTP + SSL

Am I right in thinking that the RISC OS port of curl has SSL support built into it? If so, whilst it might not be a good long term solution, in the shorter term could it be reused as to get something up and working with minimal effort?

I’ve been using the dropbox Python SDK to access my Dropbox folder. There’s an example cli client included with the SDK which I use to download and upload files.
It’s pretty basic but it does the job.

I can do some instructions if anyone wants to try it.

I can do some instructions if anyone wants to try it.

Ooh, yes please, that would be marvellous!

I’m now using Google Drive on my PCs. Placing emulator ‘drives’ in the Google Drive directory ensures that not only are the emulated drives always backed up, they are instantly synced from machine to machine, like having a pan-internet ShareFS.

Chris: what commands does the Python SDK provide? Would they lend themselves to being called from a RISC OS GUI?

If so, I might even volunteer to write the GUI.

what commands does the Python SDK provide? Would they lend themselves to being called from a RISC OS GUI?

The easiest thing to do to find out is download the RISC OS python port. Then you can do,

import client
help(client)

This will give you the details of the api.

If so, I might even volunteer to write the GUI.

I think it depends what language you use to do the GUI. If you use C you can use the libpython library.
You could also write the GUI in python if I can get it working properly. RISC OS gui support is very unstable. I got as far as an icon on the icon bar.

I’ve uploaded some brief instructions on using the ‘cli_client.py’ from the Dropbox Python SDK here.

No, it’s impossible.

The client isn’t free-standing – you have to have a browser to log in with every time, and of course this can’t be a RISC OS browser, at least not now.

On each error you get chucked out of the client. Log in all over again with the browser and a new token.

No, it’s impossible.
The client isn’t free-standing – you have to have a browser to log in with every time, and of course this can’t be a RISC OS browser, at least not now.

Is this every client? Even Android and such?

I notice that the process works using OAuth, so it is a tad more complex than a series of send/fetch.
Reference: https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/api

Additionally, it looks like you only get access to a specific folder unless you have a damn good reason (that Dropbox approves) plus it looks like each app needs a specific developer/app key – which would make it “troublesome” in an open source context. Hmmm…

No, it’s impossible.
The client isn’t free-standing – you have to have a browser to log in with every time, and of course this can’t be a RISC OS browser, at least not now.

In a bizarre twist, whilst messing about, I discovered that you can use (of a fashion) DropBox at www.dropbox.com/m using Fresco!

Who’d have thought… not sure it helps anything though.

No, it’s impossible.
bq. The client isn’t free-standing – you have to have a browser to log in with every time, and of bq. course this can’t be a RISC OS browser, at least not now.

You only need to authorise it once. Once you login the file ‘token_store/txt’ is created. I just took these values and hard coded them in the script. Run the script again and it is automatically logged in.
I’ll update the instructions to make this clear.

Additionally, it looks like you only get access to a specific folder unless you have a damn
good reason (that Dropbox approves) plus it looks like each app needs a specific
developer/app key – which would make it “troublesome” in an open source context. Hmmm…

All you do is create one app in your account pointing to your dropbox folders. Then just keep it as a developer app. No need to get it approved.

Not relating to Dropbox, but Google Drive. I looked into a Dropbox client for another platform (IBM AS/400), and the OAuth requirement is a bit of a show stopper, as it requires a modern web browser with all bells and whistles. However, Google Drive has an option for authorising on basic devices:

https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2ForDevices

So I use that cycle on the AS/400, and it works great. That means I can upload to Google Drive from a device with no GUI at all, let alone a web browser. I would imagine this would work very well on RISC OS. The code I did for the AS/400 is C, so portable, but it was for a commercial job, and I can’t just open source it, but I’d be happy to help anyone out giving this a try. I know I’d love a Google Drive client on my Raspberry Pi.

I’m still (touch wood) very happy using Google Drive as my virtual RISC OS backup/sync system. Can’t fault it. Except for its faults.