Share to cloud
Publish a local file as a public, view-only link that updates every time you save.
How to reach it
Use Share in the editor's header, or Share to cloud in a file's row menu in the sidebar. Once a file is shared, the same places show Copy link and Stop sharing instead.
What sharing does
- The file is published as a note in a Shared local files folder in your personal cloud space, with a link anyone can open, read-only.
- Every later save pushes the new content to that note, no matter where the save came from: this app, another editor, a Git commit, or a Raven Sync update all count.
- Sharing is strictly one-way. Nothing ever writes back into the local file from the cloud; there is no pull, no merge, and nothing to reconcile.
- If you clear the file locally, the public page keeps showing the last real content and marks it stale in the app, rather than going blank.
Sharing needs you to be signed in and the app running. Signed out, the Share dialog explains that sign-in is required. Changes made while offline upload the next time you launch the app.
Images
Images in the note travel with the share. An image that's too large, an unsupported format, or one stored outside the note's folder is skipped, and a toast names which one; the rest of the note still publishes.
Stop sharing
Stop sharing revokes the link this computer published. A checkbox, on by default, also deletes the note from your cloud space; untick it to keep the note there without a public link. The result tells you whether the link was revoked and whether the cloud note was deleted.
Afterwards Context Raven looks in your Shared local files folder for other live links it has no record of publishing from this computer, and lists any it finds, with the path recorded on each. Nothing is ticked in advance and nothing is stopped until you tick it and confirm — including the box that also removes those links' notes from your cloud space, which starts unticked here because the app cannot tell you what those notes are. A link somebody else has already stopped is reported as such and left alone.
When a shared file moves
If you rename or move a shared file, Context Raven looks for it again the next time the app launches and re-points the share automatically, but only when exactly one file with identical content can be found. Otherwise you'll see a persistent notice that the file is no longer on this computer, with a Stop sharing action for it.
Sharing and your other computers
A share belongs to the computer it was published from. That computer is the one that keeps the page up to date, notices if the file goes missing, and can stop the share. Another computer signed into the same account says nothing about the file — the share is healthy, it is simply not that computer's to manage, and a computer that never had the file cannot tell a deleted one from one that was never there.
It does speak about your cloud space, because it can read that. On that other computer the file shows as not shared, so sharing it there publishes a second page with its own link rather than taking over the first — and before it does, Context Raven shows you the live links already in your Shared local files folder that it has no record of publishing from this computer, and waits for you to choose. The same list comes back after a Stop sharing, so both links can come down without leaving the app.
Limits
- Context Raven cannot tell whether two links point at the same file. Nothing stored on a shared note identifies a file across computers, so what it shows you is everything live it has no record of publishing here — never a guess at which one is yours.
- A link on that list may be one this computer published before the app started keeping that record, or before it was reinstalled. It is still yours to stop; the app simply cannot account for it.
- If the cloud cannot be reached, sharing refuses rather than publishing a link it could not check against that folder first.