Geeklog Forums

Hello,

Everytime I try to access the Easyfile plugin I get errors saying it cannot find the file. I can see why it would not be able to find the file because the path it returns is messed up, but I cannot find why it adds this to the path, or in what file it does this.



Why is the " ./ " added to my path, even if it weren't a full path " ./ " would still not do anything ../*.

How can I fix this, I have looked through all my paths set by Geeklog in my config files and whatnot and can't seem to figure out why this is added before any path i put in. I'm pretty sure it is a problem with the plugin though not Geeklog.

Thanks in advance,
-Computerade

I saw this error reported a couple of months ago, but since I don't have a Windows server at hand, I was unable to properly trouble shoot it... A couple of questions:
- Are you using the most recent version of Easyfile? (v0.7.5)
- Did the plugin install properly?

I am on a RedHat server. My installation went well, and I can edit the root setting by clicking on 'e' but I can't create new folder. When I click on '+' it gives me a blank page on IE. If I use FireFox and click on that "+" sign, it doesn't even move.

Nothing shows up on the error.log. I even tried moving the filestore to the public directory just to check if it was the cause.

I am using v0.7.5. Several versions back, I tried this script and got the same error, so I gave up and this is my second try.

Yeah, it's a bug...

The error is in /admin/plugins/easyfile/index.php, line 129. Change it to read:
$EF_folders[$parent]->select();

I changed some of the internal structures for selecting a folder in this release, and I made a copy-paste mistake. I should set up some sort of regression testing before release... ok... next version.

Didn't work after chaning line 129. Then I changed line 125 and now it is working. Do I need to change 129 back to $folder? Or, keep both lines changed?

Thanks!

Sam

Quite true. Change both 125 and 129. Man... I reallyreally need to regression test before release.

Edit: Big thanks for your bug report. I just made a patch release (v0.7.6) which should be available in the download area shortly.

One bugfix and one suggestion.

When the mouse pointer is on the diskkette icon, it shows "Download %s now" rather than the full file name.

Suggestion:

I am a useability architech, and I often think from the none technical user's point of view to make sure they can easily figure things out. It will be helpful to have a text link for 'download', maybe on the line you put 'edit' link for the admin, like Blaine's Filemgmt, so that it will become more user friendly to those people who can't read icons. As for myself, I can easily edit the template and put that feature in, but it is a nice thing to be thoughtful for the handicaps. Just a suggestion.

Sam

True, I've seen this as well. I'll look into it for the next development iteration.


Yes, I've noticed my users having problems finding the download link (and I thought it was sooooo obvoius ) I've been thinking about ways to improve this, and the "link area" is probably the best place for it. Another thing I'll look into for the next version.

Thanks for your feedback.

One more suggestion for a little enhancement.

Since the folders have taken away some width space of the file list, I would prefer to give the file title full use of the rest of the space, instead of being taken away again by the little info box on the right. If that box can be moved down next to the discription and allow the file title to have the full width that will give people more room to put a more discriptive file title. Another way might be to allow the file title to wrap around.

I have always been using Blaine's File Managment. This is the first site that I redeveloped and decided to try the Easyfile. So far so good. I particularly like the integration of Geeklog's permission feature.

Sam

Since Easyfile uses standard Geeklog template theming, you can easily change this yourself. I believe that it would be a one-line change in filedescription.thtml (I don't have the source code on me right now). The reason for the current location of the file-info box is that I wanted file info to be immediately visible, but nothing is set in stone, and I'm always looking for ways to improve the interface.

I've actually been toying with the idea of moving the folder tree into the left blocks area (the way the forum menu is setup here in the forum), and that is something that I will experiment with for the next version. Another idea I've been thinking about is having a list-view in order to fit more files onto each page...

Hi Kelvin,

The current folder list is a great userfriendly feature. Moving it to the left column would lose some people.

I know how to change the layout, I was just suggesting it for the overall usability improvement of your nifty script for the benefit of everyone that uses it. I am a member of STC "Society for Technical Communication" and I am a usability architect, or in fact a usability nerd.

As long as we move the little information box and give the title enough room that should be enough improvement. In fact I think that information box should better be made horrizontal.

The computer screens are getting wider and a few years from now the wide screen will become standard and your folder list won't be a problem anymore.

Sam

I've changed the template to my satisfaction, and moved all information in the infobox to the bottom.

A question, the file size is showing kB (rather than KB or kb), is it intentional?

One other minor issue that puzzled me. I changed the character limit for the title from 32 to 52, on both class files and MySQL database. But when I uploaded a file it cuts me off at 47 characters. Quite strange. 47 character is long enough, but I find it confusing by the awkward cut off which is different from what I set up. Oh, maybe it was cut off by the form. I'll check it out.

Sam

Excellent. Are you happy with the results? Could you send a screenshot or your modified template? The reason I placed the information in the file-info box vertically was to improve readability, and I found the drawn-out horizontal layout of filemgmt hard to read. But as I said, until v1.0 nothing is set in stone.


That's very much intentional. The proper way to abbreviate kilo is with a lower-case k. If you want to use non-standard abbreviation, you can always change the language file.

On a related note: what would be the proper way to display the file upload date? The built-in Geeklog function COM_getUserDateTimeFormat is very verbose, and not really appropriate for easyfile. I'm thinking of putting this in the language file, for translators to deal with... perhaps a relative date: "two days ago", "two weeks ago", etc. I'm not sure about how feasible this would be localization-wise, but there might be some php functions to assist. On the other hand, this sort of function belongs in Geeklog core, and not in Easyfile.


That is strange. Is 32 too short? I intentionally kept it short in order to encourage longer descriptions. What I've observed, though, is that most of my users don't write descriptions anyway, and some of them just use the filename as title AND description.

Completly off topic, but kind of interesting

Are you sure it should be kB and not KiB ?

The reason for it is that the old standard for kilobyte is KB, with a capital K, and due to IEC standards this became kB for the decimal system, but KiB for the binary one, which we are using in the filemanagement plugin.

So to be fully compliant it should be KB or KiB, unless you would change the way how you calculate the file size to a decimal point of view, in which case you can use kB.

Thought it was kind of funny.
Sorry for confusing you.

More details and examples can be found here

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Vanrillaer.com - our Family Portal

Crap! So what's the relevant unit? kB or KiB? I think I'll go with kB and change the file size math accordingly.

Well, except for being technicaly correct, it is mostly a sales and marketing argument.

If you buy a 80 GB harddisk and the vendor uses the standard decimal system (the one using the small kB annotation), you actually buy a harddisk of 76,3 GiB in the standard binary system or 76,3 GB in the old way.

So if you want the files being bigger as they are you should switch to the metric system, which is what some storage vendors do.

But to honestly answer the question what is the relevant unit, being both technically correct and commonly accepted on how filesizes are expressed, it should be expressed in bytes as this is in both the decimal and binary system still 8 bit.

Alternatively, if you use KB you are also technically correct, since you indicate you use the old standards, in which Kilo was on purposes written with a K to make the difference with the classic kilo which is indeed with a small k.

Well just my

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Vanrillaer.com - our Family Portal

It is not as refined as your original, but it serves the purpose for my non-technical audiance. Most of them don't care about the upload info. They just want to see the file and be able to find out how to download it easily. It can still be enhanced with a few css coloring. The link is here



I don't think the date is a critical information. As long as it is in there for reference, that's enough. The "new" graphic would serve enough indication. However, in some other enviroments, where the dowload area is the primary service of the site with many uploads and downloads daily, then dating become essential.




Sometimes we have similar files and we need a clearer title to differentiate them quickly. When the title is clear you don't need much discription. In my case most of the time I had to repeat the title in the description because I have nothing more to say about it.

I like your Easyfile, it matches the name and it is powerful enough. I am waiting to see the file replacement feature.

Sam