Cubby - Open Source File Sharing
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Hi All,
One of the most popular use cases on Cloudron is file sharing. Currently, our users are using a variety of apps for this already including Nextcloud, Surfer, Syncthing, Jirafeu, FilePizza etc. While Nextcloud is fantastic, we have found it can be hard to administer over time. Their focus on extensibility (apps) means that end users unwittingly install many apps and are often left with broken setup after an update. Surfer's current target is static file hosting and we want to leave it that way. Syncthing focuses on file syncing and less on collaboration. Jirafeu/FilePizza are "file drop" solutions.
As a logical next step, we looked into other existing self-hosted file sharing apps like Seafile. However, they didn't cleanly fit into the Cloudron use case. Seafile, for example, has it's own file data store and does not work directly with the files in the file system.
With this in mind, we started working on a simple file sharing app, a couple of months ago. Some of our requirements for this project are:
- 100% Open Source - Licensed as AGPL. Currently, the development is entirely funded by the revenue we make from Cloudron. By making it open source, we hope to have an active community help us move development forward. If there is a need, we might sell support licenses.
- Painless selfhosting installation and maintanence - this is the primary design goal. We want hassle-free install and updates both with and without Cloudron.
- Batteries included - like with Cloudron, our approach is not have plugins and extensions. We bake features into the product. The primary use case for Cubby is file sharing and we won't add features like caldav, note taking etc into the product.
- Modern dev stack - node.js and vue.js
- Internal (team) file shares and External (public) file share links
- File viewers and editing. Collabora and OnlyOffice integration, monaco editor (the one visualstudio code is using), ...
- Syncing - Webdav sync. This will make it work with existing desktop and mobile sync clients.
The code is now in a pre-alpha state. We have already published it in the App Store and you can already try it on Cloudron. Blog, Website, Docs are all being worked on and should appear in the coming weeks.
Again, don't use this for anything production yet but we will greatly appreciate any feedback. If you have any issues, please open a GitHub issue.
Just a small screenshot teaser:
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I'll run this in parallel with nextcloud to see if I can ditch it alltogether. Nicely done guys!
In think the only thing I'd miss is the next cloud integration with PopOS
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@atrilahiji It will take a bit to get there to replace nextcloud itself but would be great to just get some feedback on what features are needed to replace it. Feel free to open feature requests on GitHub directly.
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I created a new app section now - https://forum.cloudron.io/category/132/cubby
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@nebulon Hahaha perfect. Since its fairly early in the development of this app, I might try to take a look and see if I don't get overwhelmed trying to contribute and knock some of those off too. Thankfully I mostly work with Vue
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@atrilahiji Yes, of course, contributions welcome. That's why it's opensource. Feel free to open PRs as well! Currently, lots of basic docs like install instructions etc is lacking, but it will come
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Until 5 years ago, Cubby was the name of a proprietary LogMeIn app with a similar purpose. Hopefully, you guys won't have problems with IP rights.
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@hillside502 Oh, thanks for pointing that out! Something to keep in mind before we launch this for reals.
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Name suggestion: "Fileron"
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My hope for this is to eventually replace Nextcloud for file storage. And move to Cubby for files, SoGO for email/cal/contacts, and so on. Moving away from one app that does everything kind of ok to multiple good specialized apps.
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Today I went to install Cubby. As I scrolled down to its place in the App Store I coudn't help but compare everyone else's logos/icons with the plain file folder icon of Cubby. You probably are planning to create a more stand-out logo/icon for it, so here is a suggestion:
Rather than creating a derivative of YAFF (yet another file folder), take the existing Cloudron logo and turn that into a file folder-looking image. I suppose with the angles it might end up looking more like a partially open door, if it stays vertical. You'd have to tilt it forward somewhat in order to get the darker background "folder" effect.
And further along those lines, if you have more custom made Cloudron apps, each could be a variation of the main Cloudron icon.
Just some thoughts. Congratulations.
A life lived in fear is a life half-lived
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That's great!
I'll try this out, I share your frustrations with regard to the current solutions.
For me the most important part is the sync aspect from mobile/desktop. I want to have a straightforward and firstclass experience sharing files between my devices.
Do you have in mind what the future workflow will be like in that regard?
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@robi ha, yes lots of placeholder content still.
For anyone interested in the collabora integration, if you install collabora on the same Cloudron and then edit the config.json for cubby like the following with your collabora domain, it can already open ods and odt files:
{ "collabora": { "host": "https://office.example.com" } }
I'm sure some of these are things you already had in mind but I figured it might as well be tracked.
