Today at 3:01pm, john jonas said:
>I collect a list of file paths to images from a file that a user uploads
>to my site. This could be a very, very long list of images. The user
>then wants to upload them to my server...without having to manually click
>submit a bunch of times, and I want them to upload them without killing
>bandwidth/my server.
>
>My initial thought was to present the user with a list of files, have
>them populate form fields, and upload them. However, this is a lot of
>work and I'm dealing mostly with old people.
If the "list of files" is a bunch of file input form fields, then I'd
guess the best way is to let them pick all the files they want (ie ask
them how many files they want to send, then show them a form with at least
that many blanks), then let them click submit once, and start the upload.
To throttle bandwidth, you could use server-side bandwidth controls (like
tc under linux, or dummynet with FreeBSD) to limit the bandwidth of any
particular connection. The problem with that is that you'll make the
bandwidths take longer, which will bug them. If they have dialup, you
don't need to worry at all about your server (28-56K up). If they have
cable, no problem (128K up). If they have DSL, you're probably fine (256K
up). If they have a high speed DSL or a T1 (640K-1.5M up), then it might
be time to start worrying, depending how your server is connected.
One problem you'll run into with uploads this big is that they'll take a
long time, and the form submit (including file upload) has to complete
before you can send back a result page, and there are a lot of things in
the browser, computer, server, etc. that might time out waiting for a form
submit that takes several minutes.
>My latest thought is to build a windows program that the user can
>download which will talk to our server, get the list of images, and start
>uploading the images to the server.
>
>Now I have 2 questions:
>1. Can someone tell me a better way to do this? I tried auto-populating
>form fields, as this is part of the w3c spec, but the only browser to
>support this is opera (and understandibly so). I've also thought about
>doing a java applet...but there are other complications that come with
>this. It might still be a possibility though.
If you're talking about the file input fields ("Browse..."), those
shouldn't ever be able to be pre-filled, because then you could construct
a form that would be able to send you any file you wanted by submitting
itself with javascript.
A Java applet cannot access the file system either, for a similar reason.
>2. Does someone know another student who would be capable of creating an
>application like this for me? Obviously there would be money involved.
I could talk to you about it, if you'd like. I think I know a solution
that will work pretty easily, for you and for them.
Thanks,
Mac
--
Mac Newbold MNE - Mac Newbold Enterprises, LLC
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.macnewbold.com/
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