Some more 'advanced' use cases
Sorry, I would've posted this to the What do you want in a file API? thread, but unfortunately you can't attach files to comments.
These are some use cases that Shane Peery, one of our clients, wrote up for AMBuzz, an intranet site for a large media distribution company. They have some fairly complex needs, so I figured I'd post them here in the hopes they might inspire some of the folks working on this stuff, and also in case anyone had any bright implementation ideas. :)
I've also attached some general observations/comments he made regarding Drupal's file API as someone with experience in programming, but new to Drupal. Some of the stuff he mentions is relatively easy to sort out (for example, the security stuff is a matter of turning on private downloads and moving the files directory outside of public_html), but I think there are some interesting ideas here anyway.
Edit Hm. For some reason I can't upload this PDF: http://webchick.net/soc/filesystem-use-cases.pdf
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| File management comments.pdf | 35.42 KB |
You could look at this file
You could look at this file framework. Most issues mentioned in the PDF are solved - like files as nodes, security, search, metadata extraction, gallery...
You could look at this file
You could look at this file framework. Most issues mentioned in the PDF are solved there - files are nodes, security, metadata extraction, CAS storage, search, gallery..
I use upapi
I wrote UpAPI out of my own frustration with file handling. In practice I use IMCE for inline images and attachements, and UpAPI for everything else.
UpAPI provides a form element which easily allows you add file upload fields to node forms and any other form.
It let's you save files to different directories. It let's you preserve the original filename if you want.
In your document it says, "files should be a node by default" and I disagree. I wrote UpAPI dealing with a complicated content type that requires several files (i.e. on large thumbnail, 5 small thumbnails, 5 large images, one or more videos... See http://theorphanage.com/ocp/portfolio/recent/1297 for an example of how the content is rendered). So in my opinion most files will be closely associated with a node, but should not be the node itself. And the node content type should be aware of files it contains. So when the node renders, it may link to public files via a direct URL but private files via a download callback.
That's my 2 cents, and my recommendation to use UpAPI (and help it get better).