Improve sharing experience

[marcoambrosini]

The problem

Users find sharing in Nextcloud difficult and not intuitive.

Some pain points:

• Difficult to create a new share (no share button)
• Not so effective progressive disclosure of advanced settings
• No clear difference between when users are editing a share vs when displaying the list of shares

[marcoambrosini]

@sorbaugh we need to schedule a kickoff call for this feature with all the stakeholders

[sunjam]

Got further specifics on the pain points?

[marcoambrosini]

Added a few @sunjam

[sunjam]

Got it. Headed out on ✈️ right now but we should throw together comparison of sharing in Dropbox, Google Drive and Nextcloud with screenshots to compare experiences.

Anyone reading is encouraged to do so. Link a forum post if it is easier.

[audunmb]

Here's an overview of Dropbox and Google Drive UI for sharing.

Immediatly, the most confusing setting to users is the difference between "internal link" vs "external link" in Nextcloud. In Google and Dropbox it is just one share link, and if you are logged in the document opens with the options available to you. If you have privelegies to edit the document, you can, if not it opens as read only.

In Nextcloud, it depends on the link you followed, not on your priveligies as a user in Nextcloud. Dropbox allows for different links, but IMO Googles way of doing it is better. (This should probably be a separate issue, maybe it already is and I didn't find it).

Dropbox UI for sharing:

Sharing is available both in the file list and when elements are opened.

Screenshot options in file list.

Options available on mouseover are quick view, share button, copy link button and ... (more) menu.

Options for sharing when clicking Share button:

Add people
Copy link
Transfer a copy
Advanced options from gear icon

The advanced options are:

File settings, with option for tracking who's viewed the file.

"Link for editing options" and "Link for sharing (read-only)"

For the two last ones, first you create an edit link, then you get these options

• Who has access and choose between "Anyone with link can edit" and "Only people invited".
• Expiration
• Require password
• Disable downloads
  (in dropbox the last three require a Pro account).

There's also a similar setting when an element is open with the following options:

Share with Dropbox (which gives the same options as above)

• Transfer a copy
• Send for signature
• Send and track
• Send and review

The last four are extra Dropbox services, not regular sharing options.

Google UI

On any file click and choose Share.

Choose either to share with people or copy link.
If choosing copy link, you can click for advanced options and get the same window that you get if you choose to share with people.

Here you can add people (including groups and all who are attending a calendar event), see a list of people who has access and what kind of access they have (edit, comment and view) and control what kind of access are available for links.
The default is Limited, where only users who already has access can open the file (similar to Nextcloud internal link), but when creating an open link you can choose whether those with the link has read-only, can comment or can edit.

Notes on differences with Nextcloud

1. Nextcloud has the sharing options in a sidebar, while the two above use a pop-up. Everything is in the sidebar with lots of dropdowns. IMO the sidebar is cluttered, and a pop-up may be better.
2. Nearly all options for sharing are available in Nextcloud, except for the Comment-option in Google.
3. A simple copy-link to file option is easily available in the two above, but you need to open the sidebar to get that option in Nextcloud.

[marcoambrosini]

Nice points and research @audunmb

Unfortunately for now a complete overhaul of this feature has been postponed, and there will be only a small change in the layout of the sidebar with the introduction of captions to organise a bit more the content. I will open a separate issue for that. Let's keep this issue open to share ideas about how we can improve sharing with bigger changes.