When I try to preview a .html file on the Dropbox web site, especially from the versions page, it tries to format the file as HTML. But that's a problem. What I see is useless. I need to see the RAW Text of the file. How can I do this without using a very clumsy work-around?
I am a developer working on software. As would ANY developer, I make many incremental changes throughout the day. The changes get saved to disk quite often. Both automatically at specific time intervals, and manually. One file may have 50 or more versions in any given day.
If I decide I have taken the wrong path and need to revert to a previous version to back out those changes, I need to see the actual text of a file to see what version I need, not what the Dropbox web site's (very poor!) attempt at rendering the file shows me. Ask any web site developer writing HTML if that is useful to a developer. Formatting the HTML is absolutely useless if the JavaScript inside it has not been run. And if the CSS has not been applied. The HTML is little more than a skeleton that is filled in by the JavaScript and formatted by CSS.
Further, I cannot just download all those versions -- maybe 50 or more -- and only one at a time — just to look inside them to find the right one, then discard all the rest. How do I keep track of which version is which? Can you try to imagine what a nightmare that would be?
I do not understand the reasoning behind not providing a way to preview the actual text of a text-based file. The web site can easily show me a text version of other files. CSS?? JavaScript? Does it try to run the JavaScript? Does it compile and try to run C? C++? Java? Any other programming language? Trying to format non-text-based files - pdf? docx? xlsx? - I do understand and appreciate, but not text-based files.
How hard can it be to disable trying to render HTML files?
Renaming the files so they have a ".txt" extension, then renaming them back, is not any better. 50+ versions — again, one at a time — is not a good solution. Almost the same nightmare as downloading them all. And does that remove the .html file from my PC and add the .txt file to it, then the reverse of that when I rename it back? Can I even do that from the versions page?
Please give me a way to turn OFF formatting HTML files, and any other type of files.
Thanks!
