Re: [OSCOM] drag-n-drop solutions for ajax

I'm inspired by the discussion abut ajax + drag and drop to ask you guys a 
question that has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while. 
The javascript/ajax drag-and-drop solutions work well for drag and drop 
between elements within the browser window.  They don't solve the problem 
of how to drag and drop between applications, or from the user's desktop, 
as far as I know.

Has anyone found a good way to improve over the html <input type="file"> 
control, for handling user file uploads?

The drawbacks I see with the html control are that you can only upload one 
file at a time, and that you can't drag-and-drop a file onto the control 
(at least in IE or Firefox).  I would like to see something web based that 
provides for more complex uploads.  For exmaple, uploading several files, 
uploading an entire tree of files (+ transmitting the tree structure), or 
even syncing a local tree with a remote tree.

I know that one can use FTP programs for these features but they have some 
drawbacks.  The web application doesn't usually have callback hooks in the 
FTP server to update server side databases when new files are uploaded. 
Also, the FTP server doesn't usually share the same authentication 
database as the CMS/web application.

Has anyone built a custom uploader into a CMS?  What technologies did you 
use?  Plugins?  Java?  Helper apps?  Are there any open source programs to 
do file upload to web based applications?

Oliver


On Wed, 4 May 2005, dave crane wrote:

> Hi Kit,
>
> There are various generic solutions for drag-n-drop out there for 
> javascript. A couple of useful ones I've used are Walter Zorn's library
>
> http://www.walterzorn.com/dragdrop/dragdrop_e.htm
>
> and Mike Foster's 'x' library
>
> http://www.cross-browser.com/toys/
>
> (he describes it as his 'toys', but I've used them in heavy-duty ajax 
> apps for Tier-1 banks! Highly recommended for wrapping up lots of 
> cross-browser complexity in a simple way).
>
> Hope that helps,
>
> Dave
>
>
>> From: kit blake <[email protected]>
>> Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 17:22:43 +0200
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [OSCOM] Ajax and CMS
>>
> ...
>> This direction is crucially important if browser based applications
>> want to compete with local client apps. For instance, I see the 'drag
>> & drop' difficulty as a fundamental shortcoming of browser apps. There
>> are various solutions out there, but why isn't there something generic
>> that we can all plug in when needed? (rhetorical question ;)
>>
>
>
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