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What is the state-of-the-art in uploader tools?

         

httpwebwitch

3:05 am on Jun 24, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Until just a few days ago, my site was perfect. I mean, no errors, no complaints, nothing was broken, everything worked, all pages validated, and I was actually able to relax and say "aaaah. it's done!" and start making plans for the next set of features.

Then I upgraded Adobe Flash. Because I was prompted to. As I'm sure many people were. And did.

Now, the fancy uploader that lets my users upload photos is broken in Internet Explorer (please... no microsoft jokes) - the page has a new javascript error that wasn't there before, and I'm having problems with a clickable zone overlapping things it didn't overlap before.

Grrrr!

I was - and still am - using this fantastic utility by Harald Kirschner:
[digitarald.de...]

Well I know I could downgrade and go back to the <input type="file"/> that has been around since the dark ages. The reason I liked the Flash-based uploader was that it had great extra features, file type filters in the "open" dialog, and I could actually display a progress bar showing speed and % completion. Yer plain vanilla HTML form can't do all that.

So I'm curious, is there something better out there?

I need:
1) stability. I don't want to be fixing this thing every year
2) awesomeness. I do like the progress metrics, and the file type filter options in the "open" dialog
3) ubiquity. I want something that will work on all browsers, everywhere.

Any suggestions?

httpwebwitch

3:16 am on Jun 24, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



HTML5 may come to the rescue...
here's a sample
[3site.eu...]
==> viewable in HTML5 supporting browsers only. obviously.

Firefox 3.6 claims it'll have native javascript drag-n-drop file upload... that's great for those users, not much comfort for me (I don't feel like supporting a half-dozen browser-specific uploaders, no thanks)

rocknbil

4:57 pm on Jun 24, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



the fancy uploader that lets my users upload photos is broken in Internet Explorer


Well, I have to ask - why is it only broken in IE, do you have details? Doesn't seem like "anything Flash" is browser specific except the way it's embedded, are you using SWFObject?

If it's something in the Ajax, seems like it can be fixed. <shrug>

httpwebwitch

6:09 pm on Jun 24, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



it's not just FancyUploader... it's any page that uses Callback functions to send commands from JavaScript to Flash. If you travel the web with your browser in "hypersensitive mode" like I do (showing all errors), then you'll notice them happening elsewhere too.

I saw the same error on facebook yesterday where they were using the same technique.

Hard to describe the problem without digging into intimate details about now the uploader works... suffice to say that something wicked changed in the newest Adobe flash update

dreamcatcher

8:08 am on Jun 25, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Uploadify is pretty cool, so try that. Uses flash/jquery.

dc

httpwebwitch

2:20 pm on Jun 30, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



FYI there is a fix for the Mootools/FancyUpload script.

the problem was a reserved word used as the name of a function in the callback, and required changes to the SWF as well as the JS script.

the solution was found by a former colleague, and I expect it'll be merged & released soon