FileManager module

[Silmarillion]

Hi All

Encouraged by Elijah Lofgren's excitement about the FileManager-module I've done, and him wishing for it to be included in the 1.0-release replacing the builtin, I'd like to know of any problems with it as well as suggestions for new features. I hope some would take the time to have a go with it and get back to me with their experiences, here or as bugreports in the forge.

Some of the features of the latest 0.1.1-release:
- Nice interface, with lots of filetype-icons
- Multiple file-upload
- Unpacking of uploaded files (zip, tgz and perhaps bzip )
- Allows superuser-mode, accesssing all files, not only the upload-dir (requires a special permission)

Some features more or less prepared for, but not fully implemented:
- Sorting of files on other criteria than name (implementing asc/desc-arrows soon)
- Actions on multiple files (deletion, moving)

Please feel free to suggest any other feature and I will consider whether it is realistic for the 1.0 release or should wait till afterwards.

Any help to code the module is of course also welcome! Catch me on IRC and we'll have a chat.

Best Regards and happy coding

Morten/Silmarillion

[Der Rudi]

My first experiences tested with cmsms 0.13

• unable to delete non-empty directories; should give some warning, or better 'Directory not empty: delete anyway?' cancel/ok
• not very friendly multi file upload; making a list of single files isn't the way to go, I think. What would be better is a way to select multiple files to upload,  like Windows Explorer with CTRL-click and SHIFT-click.
• I am not able to upload a whole directory in one go. Also, when directory selected, recurs into it or not? Don't know what would be better, both seem equally reasonable. Maybe also allow user to select this like 'Directory upload selected. Recurs directory? yes/no' Again, following the way Windows Explorer works/feels might be a good idea.

I think it is a much better/nicer version of the file and image manager included in the core. Don't know if I'm missing some functionality running 0.13 instead of 1.0. Please enlighten us, Morten

[Silmarillion]

Hi Der Rudi

Thanks for your feedback!

• unable to delete non-empty directories; should give some warning, or better 'Directory not empty: delete anyway?' cancel/ok

I completely agree and that's something I'll have a go on soon!

• not very friendly multi file upload; making a list of single files isn't the way to go, I think. What would be better is a way to select multiple files to upload,  like Windows Explorer with CTRL-click and SHIFT-click.

I don't know if a standard html fileinput form allows this, but I agree that selecting seperate files are not the most ergonomic way of doing it! I'll look into it, but I won't promise anything. If somebody knows of a way of doing this, please let me hear! Alternatively a embedded java-applet could probably supply the functionality you seek, but that's a bit out of scope in the first place, I think.

• I am not able to upload a whole directory in one go. Also, when directory selected, recurs into it or not? Don't know what would be better, both seem equally reasonable. Maybe also allow user to select this like 'Directory upload selected. Recurs directory? yes/no' Again, following the way Windows Explorer works/feels might be a good idea.

Again, I don't think browsers support this through html, but alternatively you can pack a whole directory as zip or tgz and upload that checking the "try unpack" box, which should unpack the file including all subdirs.

I think it is a much better/nicer version of the file and image manager included in the core. Don't know if I'm missing some functionality running 0.13 instead of 1.0. Please enlighten us, Morten

Thanks and actually I'm a bit surprised it work under 0.13 as I have developed it targeting the 1.0 release all the time. I don't think you miss any functionality, but I'll have a look at your suggestions as soon as I find the time!

Thanks again for your feedback!

Best regards
Morten/Silmarillion

[Der Rudi]

Hi Morten

Installed version 0.1.2 with cmsms 0.13 (1.0b2 to be tested...) and this is what I found:

• recursive directory deletion works; even with question/caution remarks!
• multi-file upload can be done, as you pointed out, via a zip file or similar; this works also! You are right to also point out that we are dealing with a html/browser application, not a windows one. So, not all can be done or that easily. The zip file is an acceptable workaround, I think.
• Would be nice to give some statistics for the files: pixels WxH for pictures, number of colours etc. There is plenty of room to do so, and would make it a bit easier to select them. the same might be possible for other file types also: pdf: number of pages, paragraphs, etc. etc.
• Do not know if people would like to have the simple image editor that is in the core filemanager. Might be handy to have, just in case. Depends on the effort to implement, and the one used in the core is by no means the utmost in functionality or user friendlyness. What do you think?

Will let you know what it does in 1.0b2 soon.

[Silmarillion]

Hi Rudi

Thanks for testing it!
ad 1. Do you mean that dirtree deletiong works as intended or wrongly?
ad 2. I'm working on alternative upload methods, so you can chose the one best fitting you. But they are not working yet, so I'll not enable the in releases until they do...
ad 3. Good idea! I'll have a go with it tonight and see what I can dig up of fileinfo.
ad 4. You mean it should be integrating i FM? I'm actually working on a modulized version of the ImageManager as well, using the same code as the one in the core, but seperated from it. I've been unable to find other opensource image-editing components, so for now I'm working with the one in the core, although it's by no means ideal, as you point out.

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences with FM and 1.0b2.
btw. The core developers seems to agree that this should replace the FM in the core, but not until after 1.0 is released. It will probably be the FM of the distribution in 1.1.

Bst regards
Morten

Hi Morten

Installed version 0.1.2 with cmsms 0.13 (1.0b2 to be tested...) and this is what I found:

• recursive directory deletion works; even with question/caution remarks!
• multi-file upload can be done, as you pointed out, via a zip file or similar; this works also! You are right to also point out that we are dealing with a html/browser application, not a windows one. So, not all can be done or that easily. The zip file is an acceptable workaround, I think.
• Would be nice to give some statistics for the files: pixels WxH for pictures, number of colours etc. There is plenty of room to do so, and would make it a bit easier to select them. the same might be possible for other file types also: pdf: number of pages, paragraphs, etc. etc.
• Do not know if people would like to have the simple image editor that is in the core filemanager. Might be handy to have, just in case. Depends on the effort to implement, and the one used in the core is by no means the utmost in functionality or user friendlyness. What do you think?

Will let you know what it does in 1.0b2 soon.

[Der Rudi]

Hi Morten,

1. yes, as intended.
2. ah, ok. Look forward to that.
3. ok. Might also be handy to have a thumb image for the images; not sure if this is handy for other files too (first page of pdf in thumb?).
4. yes, sort of integrated. But I can live without, since I use external programms to do image handling (gimp or even paint for example). Just to have something available if you need to. It would also make image manager redundant, so just one module instead of two.

Tested a bit further and both 1.0b2 and 0.13 seem to be working in the same fashion, apart from some display differences that are not relevant. Did however find the following (both 0.13 and 1.0b2):

5. when ticking some files to delete and then pressing 'go' does not delete at all: a screen comes that has only the header text of 'filemanager' and nothing more, no files, no buttons, nothing. It also does not delete the files selected. It does ask 'are you sure' after you press 'go', but then the empty screen follows. It does delete files when pressing the 'delete' button to the right of the single file entry.

6. would be handy to have the button 'go' and statistics (number of bytes/files) at the bottom of the page also on top of page, particular if one has a lot of files in the directory, saves this anoying scrolling down.

7. what is 'advanced mode' under settings?

8. there is a tickbox next to 'Filename' in the header under File View. What does this do?

Keep up the good work!

[Silmarillion]

Hi again

Had a good night of work here... Please test latest release!
And to your issues...
1. Great! But actually cancelling the operation didn't work... deleted anyway, that's fixed now
2. I've gotten Java-applet upload to work now I think
3. Fileinfo is next on my list. As for thumbnails, I'd like a decision first, whether to actually maintain the current ImageManager or replace it with, for instance, a thumbnail view in FM.
4. see 3.
5. That was not implemented in 0.1.2, but it is in 0.1.3
6. I'll see to that in the next version
7. That gives you access to the complete dir-structure, not only the /upload and subdirs. Of course file permissions restrict some things
8. It was supposed to check all tick-boxes for files, but didn't work. It does now (I hope)

Fileinfo and extra Go...-button in next version

m.

[Der Rudi]

Ok, tested 1.3 version:
1. cancelling now also works; didn't test that previously...
2. seemed to work, but only once. Could upload multiple files to /uploads/images first time; tried again, applet indicates file is transfering, no image file to be seen in /uploads/images. Maybe it saves the file somewhere else? I'll test some more later.
3. ok, you might include the thumbnail anyway, and leave the imagehandling to be decided upon
4. ok
5. seems to be working now
6. ok
7. ok, one can tick this in Groups Permissions; after install/upgrade it shows as not ticked, but as admin I do have full access over it!
8. ok, there is not a tick in the tickbox next to 'Filename' in the header under File View; but the functionality is there.

Keep up the good work!

[Russ]

I seem to have a problem in 1.0 Beta5. Tabs display, but nothing underneath? Any ideas.

Russ

[Silmarillion]

Hmm, sounds strange, there's no serious module-api changes from b4 to b5 as far as I know. Just checked out latest svn and FileManager runs smoothly here.
Did you have the java upload method enabled? It delays the rendering of the tab a bit, but I have no other idea right now...

Best regard
Morten/Silmarillion

[Russ]

As per my previous post,  I only see he files tabs and the surrounding black outline. OK I think I know what is going wrong here. If I remove page styles I can see the module properly - minus styling - but definitely there. It looks like CSS or Dom manipulation is collapsing this part of the display?

Russ

[Elijah Lofgren]

As per my previous post,  I only see he files tabs and the surrounding black outline. OK I think I know what is going wrong here. If I remove page styles I can see the module properly - minus styling - but definitely there. It looks like CSS or Dom manipulation is collapsing this part of the display?

Russ

I think your problem was caused by the use of short php open tags (they are not enabled on all hosts).
I've changed it to a long one: http://viewsvn.cmsmadesimple.org/viewsv ... r&view=rev

You can download the fixed file here: http://viewsvn.cmsmadesimple.org/viewsv ... iew=markup

Or just find the <? and replace it with a <?php
See the diff here: http://viewsvn.cmsmadesimple.org/viewsv ... adview.php

Hope this helps,

Elijah

[Russ]

As ever, thank you Elijah. I should have spotted that one myself ;(
But it worked so

Russ

[Hare]

Good Job. I just dl it and it's definately a worthy replacement for the built-in file manager.

Are you planning on implementing a renaming-feature?

[mattster2002]

Kudos to this replacement!
I am using this for a client at the moment, working wonders.