I don’t know if people aren’t aware of this, or if it’s intentional, but I’m going to assume the former.
If you post a Dropbox link, by default, it takes you to a download screen. For example, take the Self-Randomizing FE8 rom.
But have you ever noticed how some Dropbox links instantly download the file? You don’t have to view this page to download the link’s contents. Why is that?
Now it will download the files automatically, with no extra clicks. (Try both links to see the difference!)
Note: This post is not to call out Circles or anyone else specifically. I decided today to go through the Rom index list and found that all the download links in just about every topic (I think with one exception) made you go to the extra page.
I’m planning to download and play a whole bunch of projects, so the extra clicks added up. If you don’t care, that’s fine. If you didn’t know this was a thing you could change, now you do!
It doesn’t work as a direct link (last I checked), but you can copy a link for an image hosted on Dropbox and change “dl=0” to “raw=1” and get the direct image file without the Dropbox UI/API. Not sure why you can’t use ‘raw’ when linking the image on a page but it works when putting it in the URL bar, but…
I mean, I would be surprised if anyone just knew about that. What a weird feature.
Believe it or not that feature is the only reason i have a dropbox account, as its one of the only ways for an autodownload to work so that a Minecraft Technic Modpack will install correctly.
I’ve always done that, personally. But it’s only because I happened to catch a comment in SF way back in the day. It would be cooler if Dropbox told you, or gave you the option. I can’t think of a reason it would be intentional on the poster’s part. Anyway, good PSA.
I found it out by total accident. Tried typing in a URL I saw in a youtube video; typed a 1 instead of a 0. Then I hit enter and double-checked the URL, found myself wondering why the heck that worked.
