dropbox-invite

Introduction

This gem allows you to invite other users to a shared folder in Dropbox. It's known that Dropbox API doesn't allow this operation, however it's a requirement in some scenarios.

To achieve this functionality and due to the lack of implementation in the official API, the library relies on rest-client and nokogiri to perform the action through the web interface.

Scope

This gem is meant to provide a missing functionality, not to build another API implementation. Ideally you'd use this library in combination with some actual implementation of the Dropbox API.

I recommend dropbox-api just because I've included integration for it. If Dropbox::API is found the existing classes will be extended to allow you invite people to your folders. This is shown in the examples below.

Disclaimer

This gem depends 100% on the parsing of the HTML from Dropbox web pages, therefore a change in their layouts might result in a broken library. Please, keep this in mind if you're planning to use this in a production environment.

Another drawback of using the web interface is of course the speed.

How to use

Using it with `dropbox-api` (recommended)

First, you'll need to set up dropbox-api as explained in the gem's README:

Dropbox::API::Config.app_key    = YOUR_APP_KEY
Dropbox::API::Config.app_secret = YOUR_APP_SECRET
Dropbox::API::Config.mode       = "dropbox" # This is a requirement

At this point you're able to instantiate a Dropbox::API::Client object either through web-based authorization or rake-based. So far, nothing new.

Additionally you'll need to set up the web login credentials as part of the API settings to enable the initialization of a web client when it's required.

Dropbox::API::Config.web_session = Dropbox::WebClient::Session.new(
  :email => "[email protected]",
  :password => "yourPassw0rd"
)

Note that the web authentication won't happen until you actually need it, i.e. when the invite method is invoked.

Now, assuming that you've got a Dropbox::API::Dir object called some_dir, you'd be able to perform this:

response = some_dir.invite("[email protected]")
# => #<Dropbox::WebClient::ResponseParser ... >
response.error?
# => false
response.response_data
# => {"success_msg"=>"Created shared folder 'folder x'", "sf_info"=>{"mount_point"=>"/folder x", "user_id"=>372486289, "extra_count"=>0, "sort_rank"=>nil, "encoded_sort_key"=>["NkhCMjROBloBDAEMAA=="], "other_emails"=>[], "other_names"=>[], "modified_pretty"=>"just now", "href"=>"/home/folder%20x", "modified_ts"=>1420051083, "filename"=>"folder x", "target_ns_id"=>791334450, "icon"=>"folder_user"}}

Additionally you can check who's included in the dir through members:

some_dir.members
# => ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]

Using it on its own (standalone, not recommended)

session = Dropbox::WebClient::Session.new(
  :email => "[email protected]",
  :password => "yourPassw0rd"
)
session.invite("/folder path", ["[email protected]"])
# => #<Dropbox::WebClient::ResponseParser ... >

To do

Would be nice to:

[ ] Record tests in HTTP instead of HTTPS so they'd be readable. To do so we'll need a proxy.
[ ] Implement other functions (share permissions, etc).
[ ] Improve error handling.
[ ] Add setting to disable lazy authentication.

Problems?

Please report them in issues