I’m very happy to finally being able to announce a little project of mine that i’ve been working for the last couple of weeks whenever i had a spare moment:
What is SparkleShare?
SparkleShare is the result of Project SparklePony. At the Usability Hackfest this year in London, a couple of us OSS designers came to the conclusion that we don’t have a proper collaboration tool. We have been using Dropbox for this for a while. Dropbox has a great user experience, but it has downsides as well: you can’t host your own server; it’s not open source and has some freaky things in its license agreement.
Features
So SparkleShare aims to replace Dropbox for us. There are some resemblances and some differences. SparkleShare creates a SparkleShare folder in your home directory in which you can add different remote folders (these can be on different servers). It has the same DropBox like notification system, one feature that we really liked. It allows you to see what others are doing and take peek, much easier than sending around e-mails, forget attachments and add wrong CCs. The most important thing is that the synchronisation is automatic and happens when you add or edit files.
Technology
SparkleShare is build on Mono, GTK+ and wraps around Git. It aims to integrate with the GNOME Desktop. I’m planning OSX and Windows versions as well (in that order).
There is no release out yet, as I’ve yet to fix some nasty bugs, but my programming skills are quite limited (I’m a designer and scriptkiddie). So this is a…
Call for contributors
Help would be very much appreciated! Any kind of contribution would be great. Translations, bug reports, code, docs, it doesn’t matter. Check out http://www.sparkleshare.org/ for links to the source code on gitorious. Join #sparkleshare on git.gnome.org if you have any questions
Special thanks
…to Jakub Steiner and Lapo Calamandrei for the awesome artwork and website design! 
The name. In non-english speaking countries, SparkleShare doesn’t sound to good. And it’s not easy to pronounce. Go for a short name. Most succesful projects/bussineses have short names
Nice choice of technologies :)!
The link to the issue tracker on the website is broken.
Awesome. I will install for sure!
Very nice! As soon as there will be Linux and Windows “Clients” out there (in comparison to Dropbox) I will be in
Wow !!! This app with tomboy can be a good combination in the GNOME desktop. I wish to have a SparkleShare on-line service in the future like Snowy
Great project, I’m rooting for you, release and I’ll install!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
I want to help.
Migiuel
Love it! Cannot wait to try.
Gah, Mono. Bang go my chances of using it on OpenSolaris :/
I am super-excited about this, and want to try it out.
1) Where is the IRC channel?
2) notify-sharp-0.4.0 was never actually released, and different distros ship different code, so openSUSE 11.2 (for example) does not include the AttachToStatusIcon method, so this fails to build. I’ll see if I can work up a nice little patch.
3) I was going to point out the issue tracker thing too, but somebody else already did.
Squeeee!
Seems like a great project.
Well it will be cross platform I’ll consider making it part of the workflow for the Freezing Moon Foundation game project(s) (http://www.FreezingMoon.org)
And btw, first commenter is right, name could be shorter and better = more popular = easier to remember = more people talking about this stuff = more people using = more people contributing = success!
I would suggest naming it “spark”.
“Have you heard about Spark?”
“Are you using Spark?”
“I’ll share a Spark with you!”
“I’ll make a new Spark…”
When you pick a name, try to say it a lot of times real fast and see how that goes. You get the point.
The website and icon are looking nice btw.
Some people might have an issue with mono, for sure
YAY! Finally in the open! Congrats pal, now we just need a fast git hosting
And because it’s Git underneath freaks can go nuts with it I suppose.
And gladly one can host it himself and doesn’t have to go into Dropbox / UbunutOne suckage.
SparkleShare is a beautiful name - don’t ever change it!
Hi Hylke,
Not trying to be a troll, but have you looked at Tonido?
http://www.tonido.com/software_what.html
Thanks everyone!
The name is fixed btw. call it “sparkle” if it’s too long for you
Conrad: It doesn’t seem to be open source and doesn’t do everything we need it to.
I hope this is targetted towards average users, i don’t want to have to set up a server… looking forward to donation when release is made…
Where is the GitHub repo? =)
Can’t wait to fork it.
Awesome!!!
Do you have a bugzilla somewhere?
@Conrad Tonido isn’t opensource, which stops me dead from using that. I’m really looking forward to giving this a try.
@AK The website seems to suggest there will be an installer. Having a server service somewhere would help, but I guess as it’s based on GIT there’s no reason why you can’t just use something like Gitorious.
@Hylke There are some broken links on the website - some point to Gitorious, others to Github. I’d like to help with getting some project resources (like mailing lists, Microblogs through StatusNet/Identi.ca or Twitter, and IRC) set up. Obviously, if you don’t want to use any of these, then that’s fine (and I’d be happy to hear that you’ve considered them and decided not to use them), but right now I wish there were some places I could go to so that I can get involved in the direction of the project and learning more about the underlying design choices.
Hmm, how do I build this on Ubuntu?
This is awesome!
OH, good osftware but I have a question: Why mono?
Why not use WebDav?
I can be accessed with simple HTTP commands, even from webpages.
Jon Ramvi: The instructions in the readme file should work.
korbe: Because.
James: Because git allows us to interact with existing OSS projects.
JonTheNiceGuy: That would be great. I’m still looking for a good bug tracking solution.
Great to see such progress.
Can I get started translating to German using http://gitorious.org/sparkleshare/sparkleshare/blobs/master/locale/nl.po as the template?
Jan-Christoph Borchardt: the merging of pot files is not yet in place because i’m not sure how to do that exactly. Hopefully someone will step up soon so we can have translations.
@ Hylke: ho, great, good argument. And thanks for the ugly DLL and to exposure to attacks with software patents. \o/
If this choice is for syntax, Vala would have been a better choice.
Given that a large part of the interface problem is solved with Ubuntuone, why not just implement a server to it? The protocol and client side software is all available for reference, and my impression is its pretty neatly designed.
korbe: this is the first and last technology hating comment I’m going to tolerate on my blog.
I’m working on this project in my own free time and giving you the source with a lot of rights at no cost. You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. If you don’t like the technology used, you are free to rewrite it. You’re very welcome.
Thanks.
heng: I don’t believe Ubuntu One has version control built in and it isn’t cross platform.
Korbe: Implement the whole shebang in another language like Vala if you want to. We’re artists, we have graphics to draw, rewrites by us is a out of the question at this point. We just need a tool that works.
Hi Hylke,
I’m really excited and looking forward this project! Can I help in the translations to Portuguese pt-BR? I sadly agree with the Mono issues, please consider writing it with Python. Also, I could give you a hand!
Thanks
Magnun: Sorry, the dependancies won’t change. I hope that doesn’t put you off contributing translations though!
This sounds like a very interesting project. It’s something that I have repeatedly looked for over the last few years but nothing comes even close. Even without the version control a simple version of this project would be extremely useful. In the past I’ve tried Novell’s iFolder but have been bitten by buggy client/server interactions. I haven’t used the latest version of iFolder due to the complexity of installing it.
I wonder what key differences you see between Sparkleshare and iFolder?
You need a project specific blog/rss feed or e-mail list to notify people when the project is ready. No offense but I’m probably going to end up bookmarking it and then forgetting about it until some tech site mentions it again.
Great concept though - much needed. I’ve been playing with dropbox for awhile but got serious with it a couple of days ago and so far the features it looks like you’re building are the things I see dropbox lacking.
@Hylke and @JonTheNiceGuy re. license
You’re right: Tonido’s SDK is Apache-licensed, but the framework itself is proprietary.
All the best with Sparkle, looking forward to trying it out
Hylke, fair enough. Let the solutions roll!
Add a Flattr button, was searching for one
I’m sad that this use Mono, but it sounds like a very great project anyway! Keep up the good work!
What is the Gtk-theme you’re using in the screenshots?
Very nice indeed!
I could help with the windows client. (I am thinking C# / WPF / GitSharp).
Awesome! Congratulations!!
Brilliant - I’m really looking forward to giving this a spin.
+1 for shortening the name to ‘Spark’. It’ll be way more effective and get better take-up.
As a user who is faced with the recent blocking of dropbox in China I am looking forward to having a stable alternative. Great job!
Good job.
Spark - Spark is a view engine for Asp.Net Mvc and Castle Project MonoRail frameworks. http://sparkviewengine.com/
Hi mate,
)
just read about this project and you, surfed/read again and think this is a good place to stay a little bit, see whats going on and offer some help where i see it is needed. (usability & bug reporting, translations, and at least, donate some money for $food
keep up the good work.
Thanks everyone who would like to help out!
I’ll will make a follow up post soon with more details on how to contribute.
All right!
Let me know when you need it translated in French.
Wonderful start. Mono licensing is more freaky than DropBox is to me though.
Vadim P: Thanks. “You can use it however you like” is scary to you?
Sounds great! How long do we have to wait, I’m eager to give this a try!
zhgingaah: that depends on how many people are willing to help out but i’m planning to do a beta release within the next couple of weeks.
I can translate the application in french, contact me at my email address.
# where is twitter, facebook, etc. - should we help?
# where is newsletter-system - should we help?
# where is the bugzilla-system - should we help?
# do you need hosting facilities - should we help?
contact me if you need stuff like this.
martin
Hylke: My coding skills are slim to nil, but my testing capability knows no bounds! I’ll help in my own VERY little way…
Good luck, looking forward to it!
Hey dude, sounds great the project. I was seeking a similiar software and finally you are there.
If you need something (translate, testing, hosting, …) count with us.
NaCl u2
Just wondering how does/will this project compare to Novell’s iFolder (http://www.ifolder.com/ifolder)?
iFolder is an open source application intended to allow cross-platform file sharing across computer networks and now features the ability to share these files within a team. iFolder was originally started in 2001 and has also seem many releases leading up to the current version of iFolder that is considered to be very mature and stable. iFolder runs on the Mono platform also sponsored by Novell.
FYI, iFolder currently has clients for Linux, OS X and Windows 7, integrates with Active Directory, includes an advanced User Interface with Windows and Linux, includes a 64bit version for Windows, encrypts data locally before transmission, …
Mark
Just what I was looking for.
For conceptual ideas, I would recommend to look at TeamDrive (http://www.teamdrive.com). I think it is more fitting for an opensource project than dropbox.
Its basic idea of being only a client (although they have now created also a server) is more appealing to me. The client uses webdav accounts.
I also like the idea of all my online data being encrypted.
looking forward to the first release.
frogli
this article (http://derstandard.at/1276413023504/SparkleShare-Freie-Dropbox-Alternative-zum-einfachen-Dateitausch) also links to your website.
@Mark - iFolder is packaged for Suse only, setting it up is rather complicated (I tried) and it’s huge, huge, huge.
Great idea
This would be awesome if it could be put on an NAS — but that would require that it be very lightweight. Also, the name should change, only because it reminded me of the teenage dance group from ‘Donnie Darko’…
(upset mother): “Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!”
Aside from that, an awesome, awesome idea.
For all the translators out here, head over to http://www.transifex.net/projects/p/sparkleshare/ and you can start doing what you do best
Sounds very interesting and promising.
I hope you ensure that strong encryption is part of the design. I have looked at DropBox and chose to use Wuala instead due to the client-only strong encryption built into it (software provider can not decrypt data).
If you are looking for help with clarifying requirements, design ideas, etc., drop me a note….
@DeeJay1 & @all (german) translators:
Thx DeeJay1 for the link to Transifex! But now I have a question:
Where we can discuss the “Translating Style Guidelines”? Especially for German there will be some points to clarify (ie: usage of “Sie” or “du”)…
Has somebody a hint?
*thx*
Any updates gang - how goes the project?
Wow, i am really looking forward to that!
Hello,
My name is Ricardo Avalos and i’m chilean. I’m a php programmer with jquery, mysql, postgres, etc.
Great idea, congratulations!!!
I wish help you with the SparkleShare developer.
Greetings from Chile
Ricardo
Can’t wait for the Windows port.
One thing though: I really hope this includes support to add multiple “servers.” If it only supports 1, then it’ll be about as useless as Dropbox.
Best of luck!
-mh
@Michael Hart - it does. I use it on three different servers at the same time.
The most important app of our time. It has the potential to change how people can use multiple computers in homes, offices and schools.
I can contribute with:
- Conceptualisation
- User scenarios / Use cases
- Testing
- Website design
- Meeting facilities in Copenhagen, Denmark
- Project management
- Danish translations
Kind regards,
Kristian
We just switched to SparkleShare internally. It now runs using our own server which is a great advantage over Dropbox.
Works really well.
Really worth a donation.
Regards,
Elias
I use it on three different servers at the same time!!