If your group uses Dropbox to share music files with your members, then this new feature could be really important for you. It is now possible in your Making Music Platform to embed on a song's page all the files from one Dropbox folder in one simple action, by copying-and-pasting one web-address. An example of this can be seen below:
You now no longer need to attach files to each song in your Platform (previously this meant uploading the files from your own computer, one by one). Instead, you can now do the following:
- Log into Dropbox and obtain the 'Share' link for the folder containing the song's files (note that members will have access to all files in that particular folder). This is done in different ways, depending on where you do it - via the Dropbox website, on a Windows computer, on a Mac, for example. Generally speaking, you locate the specific folder in your Dropbox storage, right-click on it (or similar), and locate the 'Share' option. Share the folder (usually for viewing only, not editing) and you'll be presented with a Dropbox Share link, which would look something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/abcdefghijklmno/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY?dl=0 (Note the "?dl=0" bit at the end. That's needed, so make sure it's included.)
- Copy the Share link
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Back in your Platform, update the song, and paste the Share link into the new field:
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Save your changes
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You are now done. This is a quick and effective way to provide access to many files. Things to note about this new feature:
All files can be opened, viewed, played directly in the new Dropbox area of the song's page - that folder can even contain sub-folders.
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For those of you without Unlimited Storage, it doesn't use up any of your Platform account's 1000mb Storage Space allowance.
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You cannot track which of your members have downloaded each Dropbox file.
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You can still use the existing Making Music feature for uploading files and resources, especially if the resource you want to attach to the song is a YouTube video.
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All files that have previously been uploaded to a song will still be accessible to your members in the normal way.
