I agree. Just tried the Dropbox integration feature and it is close to useless if there is no way to link Dropbox files from their existing locations.

I’m not gong to reorganize all the company files to show a few pertinent ones in a task. Only workaround I see is to duplicate the files so the originals stay out.

+1 for linking directly to DropBox files

+2 for the same

First, I want to say this: The Nozbe integration w/ Dropbox on the iPad is what allowed me to ditch my laptop when I head to meetings. Awesome job!

Individual file linking would be cool, but only if it’s capable of handling file moves and parent folder renames. Otherwise I think you’re creating the potential for frustrated users when data disappears because the renamed a parent folder without considering the implications (better not to create something people rely on if it’s going to be brittle – which I think this could be).

Linking specific folders to projects is a great goal. It could suffer from the same problems as I described above with individual file linking, but it would be way less of a hassle to relink my 12 projects than hundreds of files (I suspect the Dropbox API allows some mechanism for following files as they are moved and renamed – please utilize it if they do).

All this said, both the above methods are heavily “configuration” based. The current folder name mechanism is “convention” based. In the programming world, convention is almost always better the configuration. However, the current convention is dissatisfying to me (and I suspect a number of other users). This is one problem with “convention over configuration”: you’re asking a lot of people to agree upon your convention. Every open source library I’ve used that’s emphasized convention over configuration has someone on the forums complaining that they don’t like the convention.

My ideal file structure looks like this:
/Bidding_Projects/<Client_Name>/<Project_Name>/
/Active_Projects/<Client_Name>/<Project_Name>/
/Completed_Projects/<Client_Name>/<Project_Name>/
/Shared_Project_Info/<Client_Name>/<Project_Name>/
/Project_Archive/<Client_Name>/<Project_Name>/

Obviously, this is a convention that very few other users besides myself would find useful, and if Nozbe were to implement it as the only option people would be angry.

However, I think you could create what I’m going to call a “configurable convention”. The idea being, you give us a mechanism for defining file “searches” ourselves.

For example, the “Active_Projects” search could be as easy as follows: IF [FOLDER PATH] [STARTS WITH] <Active_Projects>
AND [FOLDER NAME] [EQUALS] <{Project_Name}>
THEN [INCLUDE] [FOLDER CONTENTS AND SUBFOLDERS] IN <{Project_Name}>

The items surrounded with [SQUARE BRACKETS] I invision as drop down boxes (i.e. equals / doesn’t equal / contains/ starts with, etc). The items surrounded with <ANGLE BRACKETS> are text boxes. The {CURLY BRACKETS} are special variables you can insert.

LESS AMBITIOUS OPTION:
Being able to specify a “Projects” subfolder as an alternate to searching the top level folder for matching project names would be passable. I don’t want to clutter my top level Drobox folder with a folder per project. I’d even be willing to have the name of that subfolder forced on me.

The “LESS AMBITIOUS OPTION”, is better described by this post: http://www.nozbe.com/gtd/forum/section-1/post-176b1ab5/dropbox__root_

That’s exactly what I was going for. He just said it better.

Dropbox integration is useless as it is
Being limited to 2nd level is not manageable
That needs be fixed
A tradeoff from a user perspective could be that some subsub(sub…) folders are accessible and others just not but that integration that gives only access to level 1 is useless as it stands
What are the plans to fix this that is in my top2 feature needs ?
Thanks