Michael S. Clark

I’ve recently been using Dropbox.com to keep my files in sync between home and work. I’ve also been on the hunt for a (free) site to host ClickOnce deployments.

It was only in a revelation whilst I was in bed last night that I wondered if I could use Dropbox’s Public directory as the target to publish my files.

It works! Here’s how…

1. Install the Dropbox client,
2. Once installed, navigate to the Public sub-directory in whichever directory you assigned as the Dropbox directory,
3. Right-click on the “How to use the Public folder.rtf” file,
4. In the Dropbox menu item, click “Copy Public Link”,
5. Paste it into any notepad application,
6. In Visual Studio, in the Publish tab of your project’s properties, use the following information (substituting your own locations as required):
   • Publishing Folder Location: C:\My Documents\My Dropbox\Public\Project1\
   • Installation Folder Location: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/xxxxxx/Project1/ (Paste the link from step 4, removing the How to use the Public folder.rtf portion and adding the project directory)
   • Click the “Updates” button,
   • Update Location: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/xxxxxx/Project1/ (I always do this just to be on the safe side)
7. Publish
8. That’s it! The files will sync to the Dropbox servers, and the project is deployed!

Now all you have to give out is the URL to either the http://dl.dropbox.com/u/xxxxxx/Project1/index.html file if you chose to generate one in your publishing options, or http://dl.dropbox.com/u/xxxxxx/Project1/setup.exe directly.

Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.