Sharing Documentation

Question

Is there a good description of sharing that addresses sharing between multiple users / accounts on the same computer and sharing between multiple computers?? I get some success in sharing between multiple users / accounts on the same computer and then I realize that I just don't understand sharing --- you put things in the Public Folder and in the Drop Box and mark things for sharing here and there, what is the big picture? If something is marked for sharing why can't that be enough without all the other stuff being done.
Thanks for your help
Andy

Answer 1

A user's public folder and drop box are able to be accessed by other users on the same computer just like you can access them over the network.
I think of the Shared folder more as a common library where, say, you keep a PDF of your TV's user guide, so all users can access it easily. I could keep my TV user guide in my /Users/jv/Public if I wanted to. And my wife could keep a PDF user guide of our Mac Pro computer in her Public folder, but it kind of makes more sense, to me, anyways, to leave them all in /Users/Shared, like a public library for the local neighborhood.
As far as access to Public folders and drop boxes, either over the network or locally on the same computer, the way I use them is if I want to make a document available to someone specific to download but not necessarily make it available to everyone with an account, I tell them that I put it there. More realistically, I would put it in their dropbox and let them know that I did. I liken these scenarios to a case of "targeted" sharing as opposed to "global" (all computer accounts) sharing.
So the way I use /Users/Shared and /Users/jv/Public and /Users/jv/Public/Drop Box, is that /Users/Shared is like the public library where anybody can go and check out a book or donate a book, and the ~/Public and ~/Public/Drop Box are more for targeting shares to a specific user. But that's just how I do business. I can't really comment on why Apple designed /Users/Shared folder and /Users/*/Public and /Users/*/Public/Drop Box the way that they did. I just tailor the way I use those folders around their access privileges.
If you want to share your /Users/Shared folder over the network, you can. Just go to System Preferences Sharing, highlight File Sharing, check the checkbox, add /Users/Shared to the list of shared folders, and then set up the owner/group/everyone access rights as desired over in the users list for that folder. Once you do, that will be one of your mounting points along with the other folders that show up as your choices when you are initiating an AFP remote mount -- a "wide area" public library versus just a local one, and versus "targeted sharing," if you will.