Improvements to the File Manager

[robi]

It's so convenient to have an instant file manager for quick tweaks and updates, but that turns out to not be so quick sometimes due to the following ways it currently works.

Drag'n'drop of files is great, but overwrites files if they exist. This got me a few times as I had the expectation it would ask to overwrite or rename.

Barring that improvement, a clone/copy file feature is missing. One could easily duplicate a file with a new name and avoid the whole unexpected mess.

Barring that, a file creation feature would be great, even if it's simply touch <file> in the backend, which can then be renamed or edited.

What else would you like the File Manager to do?

[msbt]

@robi said in Improvments to the File Manager:

This got me a few times as I had the expectation it would ask to overwrite or rename.

All my transfer clients overwrite by default if the files don't match size/date, if the filemanager starts asking if I want to overwrite, that would not be an improvement for me

[robi]

@msbt
Fair enough, it can be a setting.

[thetomester13]

I was messing around with the File Manager today and had some thoughts around it. Figured it'd be fine to add here as this is a bit of a general topic.

• It looks like all directories in the File Manager are listed as '4 kB' under size. Which might be true for the folder itself, but it doesn't factor in the files within the folder. Ideally, I'd expect a folder size to display the size of all of the contents within it.
• It also seems I can't download directories. I think this could be quite handy, and it is already doable in the Terminal of an app if you hit 'Download' and feed in a directory path.

I realize the File Manager is still in its infancy and these issues aren't pressing at all, just some thoughts for improvement!

[Lonkle]

@thetomester13 I think that both of those are reasonable requests and because the file manager is so new, the feedback is great. I would definitely find the things you mentioned useful but never would have thought of them.

[d19dotca]

It looks like all directories in the File Manager are listed as '4 kB' under size. Which might be true for the folder itself, but it doesn't factor in the files within the folder. Ideally, I'd expect a folder size to display the size of all of the contents within it.

@thetomester13 It'd be awesome if they can somehow get around the 4 Kb thing so we know what the total of the folder is, but just for reference (you may already know this) this is how Linux works too when you run a command like "ls -alh", so at least the behaviour is consistent with the file system commands. Though I personally wish neither of them would work that way, haha, and work the way you suggested where it totals everything up.

[thetomester13]

@d19dotca I actually didn't know that (Mac user myself, sorry : ) but makes sense as to why it works as it does now. There is though the du command that might be able to help with this functionality? Just a thought!

[robi]

@thetomester13

du -sh

[Lonkle]

I think a File Manager is hugely important so I'm v happy it exists now. Part of my pipeline is to quickly set up a staging site in the root of my Wordpress Multisite (I have a plugin that automates this). And then I test everything and I'm good to do.

But when I go to delete the staging folder, it takes like an hour to finish deleting via SFTP. And via SSH / File Manager running on the same hardware, it takes seconds.

I've never understood why we never came out with anything better than SFTP for file management on servers.

[nebulon]

I think the whole folder size is just causing unnecessary disk I/O for the server, for only little benefit. I would argue that in 95% the accumulated folder size is not relevant and thus uselessly strain the server. If for some reason it is important though, the webterminal still offers that information using the mentioned du command.

[thetomester13]

@nebulon I see that. Maybe (eventually) there could be an option in the dropdown to 'Get directory size' so it'll only calculate when explicitly request. Again, this is obviously just a nice-to-have.

[Lonkle]

@thetomester13 said in Improvements to the File Manager:

@nebulon I see that. Maybe (eventually) there could be an option in the dropdown to 'Get directory size' so it'll only calculate when explicitly request. Again, this is obviously just a nice-to-have.

@nebulon This is the only use case I see and most file systems, on user request, is when they tally the file sizes. Not a bad idea to hover over a "4KB" / "--KB" in blue writing and then it changes to "Calculate" which can just run du on-demand inside the app. I second this request because I've had to do this manually and I think it's reasonable to not have to do it via command line only.

[p44]

@robi I don't know if it has already been requested but a "compress" "decompress" function could be very useful. Especially in the case of wordpress migrations, when you want to upload a wp-content directory in compressed format and then decompress it.

@girish what do you think?

[jdaviescoates]

@p44 I'm pretty sure this is in the pipeline (hopefully in 6.0) as per this from @girish :

https://forum.cloudron.io/post/16424

[girish]

@p44 Yes, extract and directory upload are already implement in the Cloudron 6.

[p44]

@girish Great! @jdaviescoates