My Idea

The handling and publishing of files is one of Drupals weakest points. My site was largely based on me publishing mp3 files and code. I wanted to upload the files with FTP and publish them from an upload directory on the server. At that point I made my own "filepublishing module". And from that point of I started to ponder on what could be done with the way Drupal handles files. And now I have a rough idea of how I would like to do it.
I probably won't have the time to do any time soon, so I'm sharing it here to make shure the idea is not lost when I start to think about other things.

What I want to do:
-It should be possible to add files from different locations:
* Link to remote file, http / ftp
* Copy remote file http / ftp to local server
* Upload files to an upload dir on the local server with ftp, and then import them
* Possibly a mass eb upload java applet (like the one gallery has)
* Normal upload with a form

-Where and how the files are stored should be flexible:
* Store files locally on the server
* Store files on a remote http / ftp server
* Store files as blobs in the database

-A file should be a file whether it is an Image, a media file, a document or whatever this enables:
* Statistics for downloads
* Keeping track of how many files you have, who owns them, what they are attached to etc

So how am i planning on doing this:
I feel that each file should be a node, to keep compatibility with the rest of Drupals functions, taxonomy, access control modules etc. But how this node handles when you access it should depend on what kind of file it is.

the new_generation_filehandler.module:
- Handles a file like a file, nothing fancy
- provide easy to use widgets to put in forms to provide file uploads
- Provide easy to use widgets to put in forms to provide attaching of excisting files to a node
- provide other useful widgets and blocks related to files
- provide import functions to create file nodes from ftp / remote files
- provide a some sort of explorer application to manage all your files
* This explorer application would provide filtering on taxonomy, file type (more on that later) owner, most popluar etc
- provide the basic functions for creating a simple file node

To ensure custom handling of files according to type i suggest file api modules. For example you'd want to look at an image, watch a movie, listen to music and so on.

A file type module would have functions that will be called during node save, load update and delete to store file type spesific information. i.e. extended image info derived from images, artist and song info derived from mp3 files.
it would allso contain the theme functions for the file type to specify how this file type is presented.

During creation of a file node, the user could choose what kind of file type it is, or it could be determined from extension of mime type. Allthough I've never figured out how to get the mime type from a file that is not uploaded through a form.

This is a lot of thougths written in a rather clumsy way, I appologise for that. But I'll try to make it good with a snippet of pseudo php to try to illustrate my idea:

In short:
- All files are nodes
- A file node i not static, it depends on what kind of file it is
- Files can come from anywhere and be stored anywhere
- A file node is easy to include or attach to your content (example: it should be easy to add a player with your latest mp3 production to the articel where you introduce it.
- It is easy to create a file node from the same form that you creates other nodes, at the same time, either with upload or import.
- You know your files, how many they are, who created them, when they where created, how many downloads they have, where they are attached
- It's easy to manage file nodes

Again I'm sorry for the long post with the clumsy language, but at least now my idea wont die alone.