Dropbox/Xfce (Thunar) integration.

[secipolla]

1) "Install Dropbox via command line"

32-bit:

cd ~ && wget -O - "http://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86" | tar xzf -

64-bit:

cd ~ && wget -O - "http://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

2) Download and install thunar-dropbox from http://softwarebakery.com/maato/thunar-dropbox.html
You will need to install build tools (I'm not sure, but I think that besides what comes already in Fedora we need only gcc) and Thunar-devel and follow the (very simple) instructions at the softwarebakery.com link above.

3) To start Dropbox automatically at login, open "Settings > Session and Startup" from the Xfce menu, tab "Application Autostart", click on "Add" and add something like:
Name: Dropbox
Description: On-line file storage and sharing
Command: <browse to ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd>

4) If you don't want to start Dropbox automatically and rather just launch it eventually from the menu, I recommend to link dropboxd to $PATH

cd ~/bin
ln -s ../.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

and then create ~/.local/share/applications/dropbox.desktop with, for instance, this content:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Dropbox
GenericName=File storage and sharing
Comment=On-line-file storage and sharing
Exec=dropboxd
Icon=dropbox
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Categories=Network;

5) Add "Send To" Thunar actions with the following files:
a. ~/.local/share/Thunar/sendto/dropbox_folder.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Exec=cp -dr %F /home/your_username_here/Dropbox/%F
Icon=dropbox
Name=Dropbox

b. ~/.local/share/Thunar/sendto/dropbox_public_folder.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Exec=cp -dr %F /home/your_username_here/Dropbox/Public/%F
Icon=dropbox
Name=Dropbox Public

Note: if your icon theme, like the Fedora default icon theme, doesn't have a "dropbox" icon, copy it from ~/.dropbox-dist/icons to ~/.icons

[aleph]

Great guide And very good demonstration of Thunar's versatility.


Thank you!

[secipolla]

thunar-dropbox adds right-click Dropbox actions when inside ~/Dropbox (1st picture)
"Send To" works everywhere to send files to the Dropbox folders (2nd picture)

[secipolla]

You're welcome, aleph. Yes, versatility is fundamental.
I just opened these days a bug report for file-roller in Fedora as that great archiver in Fedora, unlike in Debian, Arch etc. requires nautilus and calls it to open directories. That's laming an otherwise very featureful and versatile tool.
Meanwhile I'm using Peazip...

[aleph]

I guess this thread is what will finally make me install Dropbox on my notebook and my Android phone.

[secipolla]

aleph, or anyone interested, if you use this referral link you and me get 500 MB of extra space on the free account.
I don't need this extra space right now but since it benefits both, I'm posting here.

[aleph]

Hi, thank you, but I already have a dropbox account.

[secipolla]

Another tip.
In my recent Xfce F17 installation starting from the minimal ISO, clicking the Dropbox icon on the panel was opening Firefox instead of Thunar.
For some reason it didn't find the default file manager and Firefox is a fallback for xdg-open in these cases.
So we set the default for ourselves in the proper xdg-utils way with:

$ xdg-mime default fedora-Thunar-folder-handler.desktop inode/directory

And now Dropbox (and any other app that doesn't look for the Xfce defaults and uses the xdg defaults instead) will open its folder in Thunar.

[secipolla]

Today I noticed that thunar-dropbox wasn't working.

Well, I figured 'it wasn't working' because Dropbox needs to be running for it to work. (aham..)
So I'll leave the info below as it has instructions to both update Dropbox (in case it doesn't update itself) and re-build thunar-dropbox.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To update it, in case it doesn't auto-update (I don't know).
https://www.dropbox.com/release_notes

Remove both ~/.dropbox (this is the application) and ~/.dropbox-dist (these are the settings).
Install Dropbox again:
32-bit

cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86" | tar xzf -

64-bit

cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

To re-build thunar-dropbox:

cd src/thunar-dropbox-0.2.0
su -c './waf uninstall'
./waf clean
./waf configure --prefix=/usr
./waf build
su -c './waf install'

Next time you open Dropbox you'll have to re-enter your account settings (as we cleaned ~/.dropbox-dist) and it will sync again ~/Dropbox.