How do you get Dropbox shareable links from the API?

Question

We have a web application that uses dropbox as file storage. We have currently run into the issue that shortlinks become inactive after 31 days (http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=33049). Therefore, we are looking for ways to create shareable links instead of shortlinks. However, we can't seem to find this in the API.

Also, it appears to use the funcationality to create a shareable link, you first have to visit a specific dropbox URL to enable something (http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=35225&replies=2#post-303557). Would this also need to be done via the API?