A molecular model is often most useful when someone else can inspect or work with it. But sharing a document brings a practical question: should it be discoverable by everyone, available only to people with a link, or limited to people with access rights? Choosing deliberately helps you avoid sending a document to the wrong audience—or leaving collaborators unsure how to find it.
SAMSON Connect lets you publish documents from SAMSON and choose their visibility. The key is to match the setting to how you expect people to find and use the document. Before publishing, consider who needs it, whether they should be able to find it through the documents area, and whether access should depend on permissions.
Choose visibility based on how the document will be shared
- Public: everyone can use the document, but editing requires access rights. Choose this when broad availability is appropriate.
- Hidden: anyone with the link can use the document, but editing requires access rights. This suits sharing by direct link when you do not want the document to be generally discoverable.
- Restricted: using or editing the document requires access rights. Choose this when access should be limited to people who have permission.
These options are about access to the document; they do not all mean the same thing. In particular, Hidden is not the same as Restricted: a hidden document can be used by anyone who has its link, while a restricted document requires access rights to use or edit it. Editing also requires access rights for both public and hidden documents.
Publish with enough context to be useful
In SAMSON, select Home > Publish to open the publishing dialog. Enter a document name and description, then select the visibility setting that fits your audience. A clear name and description make the shared document easier to recognize when people encounter it in SAMSON Connect. Think of them as a small handoff note: identify what the document is, and give readers a useful starting point without assuming they already know your project.
After choosing the details, click Publish document. The document is shared in SAMSON Connect – Documents, and a link to it is provided in the same window. If you selected Hidden, that link matters: anyone with it can use the document. If you selected Restricted, access rights are required.
Make the receiving step clear
When a colleague needs to download a document shared in SAMSON Connect – Documents, they can do so in SAMSON by selecting Home > Download. Including this simple instruction in a handoff message can prevent a common point of friction: the recipient has the shared document link but is unsure where to go next.
You can also access and manage documents you have shared, as well as documents shared with you, from your SAMSON Connect account. This is useful when you need to review what you have made available or find documents collaborators have shared with you. Access settings can be controlled when publishing and later from your account.
A simple sharing routine can make a molecular-model handoff clearer: give the document a meaningful name, describe it, select visibility according to the intended audience, and tell recipients how to download it. For details, see the SAMSON documentation on sharing documents.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON.