A molecular model is most useful to a collaborator when they can actually open and use it. But sharing a document also raises a practical question: should it be available to everyone, only to people with a link, or only to people who have been granted access? Choosing the right visibility before you publish helps make a handoff clearer and avoids treating every shared document the same way.
SAMSON Connect lets you publish documents from SAMSON and choose their visibility. The choice affects who can use the document; editing always requires access rights. That distinction is useful when you are sharing work for review, distributing a resource more broadly, or keeping access limited.
Choose visibility based on the audience
- Public: Everyone can use the document, while editing requires access rights. Choose this when the document should be broadly available.
- Hidden: Anyone with the link can use the document, while editing requires access rights. This is useful when you want to share the document by sending its link rather than making it generally visible.
- Restricted: Access rights are required to use or edit the document. Choose this when access should be controlled.
These options separate two questions that are easy to conflate: who can use a document, and who can edit it. For Public and Hidden documents, use does not itself grant editing rights. If a collaborator needs to make changes, plan for the required access rights as well as sharing the document.
Publish from SAMSON
In SAMSON, choose Home > Publish to open the publishing dialog. Enter a document name and description, then select the visibility that matches the intended audience. Before publishing, it can help to check that the name and description will make sense to someone who did not create the document. A clear description gives recipients useful context at the point they encounter the shared document.
When the details are ready, click Publish document. The document is shared in SAMSON Connect – Documents, and a link to it is provided in the same window.
Download a document someone shared with you
When you need to bring a shared document into your own SAMSON workspace, use Home > Download. This provides a direct route from SAMSON to downloading documents shared through SAMSON Connect. If you are sharing a document with a colleague, including this simple menu path in your handoff can save them a search through the interface.
A quick sharing check
Before you publish, pause to confirm three things: the document name and description identify what you are sharing; the visibility matches who should be able to use it; and anyone who needs to edit it has the necessary access rights. After publishing, remember that you can access and manage documents you shared, as well as documents shared with you, through your SAMSON Connect account. For more on access rights, groups, and shared documents, see Collaboration.
For the complete instructions, visit Share documents in SAMSON.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON.