Introducing a new File Framework for Drupal 6

I would like to take an opportunity and introduce yet another file framework for Drupal 6. The project page is http://drupal.org/project/fileframework.

File framework is a collection of modules which allows uploading and displaying different media type files. It uses a distributed content-addressable storage (CAS) system Bitcache for a file storage. Bitcache will provide options of synchronizing the file content of two Bitcache-enabled Drupal sites over the cloud, as well as replicating Drupal file content to any of the other available backend storage drivers, which will include Amazon S3, SFTP and Memcached, among others.

A metadata of the uploaded files is extracted using EXIF, GetID3, pdfinfo and saved in the Resource Description Framework (RDF) storage. This blog introduces the RDF API for Drupal. Searching files based on the metadata will be available when a SPARQL engine will be developed for Drupal.

A node of type file is created for each uploaded file. This gives a revision control and will integrate with the views.

Each file is converted to number of other MIME formats using available open source converters. For example a MS Word file can be automatically converted to PDF, OpenDocument Text (using OpenOffice daemon + JODConverter), Plain text (using catdoc), Flash video (using SWFTools), JPEG (using GhostScript) and Zip (using gzip). Converted (derived) files are saved in the Bitcache and their metadata is extracted and saved in the RDF along with the relation to the original file. All derived files are listed and can be downloaded.

If a file is a plain text or has a plain text derivative, it is indexed and can be searched based on content.

Framework provides number of viewers. A file can be previewed in various MIME types using derived files. Viewers are triggered via AHAH calls without page reloads.

Various restrictions based on uploaded file size, extension or disk quota can be configured.

The framework comes with the antivirus module which sends files to the ClamAV antivirus for scan.

Files can be attached to several nodes or comments. The file preview is loaded and displayed bellow the parent node. Already uploaded files can be attached to multiple nodes or comments which makes them reusable.

File gallery provides a taxonomy based file browser with the previews in the jquery thickbox.

Several screenshots of the framework in action can be viewed here.

The following features are on the TODO list and will be implemented in a near future:

• Integration with a DAV module and porting DAV to D6 for a batch file uploads;
• Creating a module which allows embedding files (images) to the node's content;
• Taxonomy browser with file upload capability to mimic desktop file system;
• Integration with OG when it is ported to D6;
• Integration with Views;