As announced with our previous blog post, we’ve redesigned some of SharedSafe’s dialogs to make them easier to use, for example:

In addition, we’ve added a default folder where all new Linked Folders are placed in. The default folder is created under “My Documents\My Safes” and is accessible via a Desktop Shortcut.

Of course, advanced users are always able to create Linked Folders at any location on the drive by using the context menu or by entering absolute paths in the “Create Safe” dialog.

For more details, you may take a look at our change history.

This update is about usability. We started to modify SharedSafe to make it easier to use for new users while keeping all its functionality. As a first step, we have decided to change the launcher back to a more task oriented style. For new users, there are three options, which start the appropriate task dialogs (take a look at our new screenshot of the launcher):

1. Create a Safe

This is the first step for a new user who has not yet received a SafeKey (*.safekey) file. Click this option to open a dialog and enter an existing Email address or create one at the providers we suggest. After you entered your Email address and specified a local file system folder, your files are automatically uploaded by SharedSafe.

2. Use a Safe Key

When you received a Safe Key file from a friend, you can use this option to import the Safe Key and link the Safe to a local file system folder. As soon you completed these two steps, the files in the shared Safe are downloaded to your local folder. Tip: Alternatively, you can open or double-click the Safe Key file to use it.

3. Share a Safe

As soon you have created a new Safe, you can use this option to export and share a Safe Key. Whoever receives this key, can use option 2. “Use a Safe Key” to access the files in the Safe. Note that SharedSafe is free for read-only access: If you own a SharedSafe license, you can share your files with all your friends for free!

Another usability enhancement is that you can now see the folders in which files have changed. The folder names are shown in the notification popups and in the recent changes dialog.

Moreover, we have fixed some minor bugs and issues. If you are interested, take a look at the change history.

Outlook

We are planning the following two usability enhancements:

• Default Folders: We want SharedSafe to keep all Linked Folders at a central place. In one of the next versions, SharedSafe will precreate a folder named “\My Documents\Shared Safes\” in which all new Linked Folders are created and linked by default. Of course, advanced users can always create Linked Folders anywhere on their drives.
• Two Column Task Dialogs: The task dialogs that are used to configure SharedSafe, are interleaved with descriptions and hints. We want the descriptions to be more detailed, but don’t want them to interfere with the flow when the user is entering account details. So we decided to create a new, two-column layout for the task dialogs where the user can enter his choices in the left column and get help and hints from the right column.

If you want to comment on these upcoming changes or like to share some more ideas, we are happy to discuss them with you at our feedback page.

We fixed a small but annoying error that caused a tray notification to pop up every minute as soon the trial period runs out. With this release, individual tray notifications appear only once after SharedSafe is started.

There are two secure ways to connect to an IMAP server. The preferred one is SSL, which encrypts all communication on a transfer connection. The other one is TLS, which starts with an unencrypted conversation and then switches over to an encrypted one. SSL is usually served on port 993 and TLS is accepted on the standard IMAP port 143.

For security reasons, SharedSafe only uses one of the two methods to transfer account credentials and your SharedSafe encrypted files.

Most providers support both connection types and almost always suggest to use SSL. Additionally, SharedSafe has some built in rules to prefer SSL when both options are available.

So TLS is rarely used, and that’s why we have missed the fact that TLS was not working properly with SharedSafe before.

Now, with the current version, TLS connections work as expected and SharedSafe supports even more Email Providers.