

Paul Buchheit's idea for better file uploads on browsers -- anyone want to pledge to or develop it? - rnc000
http://micropledge.com/projects/better-file-upload-plugin

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sbraford
I don't get it -- Flash is already ubiquitous. Why does Paul want to boil the
ocean?

Even multi-file Flash uploaders with progress bar indicators are free and
plentiful. My favorite: <http://www.element-it.com/MultiPowUpload.aspx>

The only trick is getting Flash to pass session variables or some other way
for the server to authenticate the user.

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daltonlp
SWFUpload has worked awesomely for me:

<http://labb.dev.mammon.se/swfupload/>

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benhoyt
That's pretty sweet! Good link -- I'll keep that in mind. (Though it doesn't
do two of the things Paul was after: open a better file-select dialog, and do
local data processing on the file before sending it.)

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mynameishere
<http://jupload.sourceforge.net/applet-basic.html>

Done.

Oh, right. No one likes Java. (I'm a little perplexed as to why the author
defaulted to the nasty metal L&F).

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benhoyt
For better or worse -- better, IMHO -- Buchheit's spec on his blog entry rules
out Java. Quote: "Unfortunately, Java applets don't actually work, and after
11 years of not working, I'm not expecting that to change."

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mynameishere
My experience is contrary to that. I've deployed applets to the general public
with success. (No, not 100 percent, but the same can be said of javascript and
flash.)

Try out the link for yourself, though.

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benhoyt
Hmmm ... I guess I'm not the general public, but I'm running a fairly generic
install of Firefox 2.0, and the page comes up with a big grey box with a red X
in it. I'm not actually sure why this is, as I'm sure I've had some Java apps
working in the past.

Update: Oh, the Java console shows something about an
"UnsupportedClassVersionError".

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nostrademons
That happens when you try to run a Java app that was compiled with a newer
compiler on an older VM. Most likely, the demo was built with Java 1.6 and
you've still got 1.5. It's working on my browser.

...It's also slow to load and incredibly clunky. Why, Swing, did you have to
reimplement every native widget so that none of them look the way we expect? I
think Paul's "no Java applets" remark is on the money here.

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Jd
"I'm serious about this, and willing to pay quite a bit of money to make it
happen."

$17 does not strike me as a lot of money.

Has anyone used and had success with this micropledge site?

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benhoyt
"$17 does not strike me as a lot of money". True. Obviously Paul hasn't
pledged yet. :-)

microPledge is only a few days post-launch, so success stories are low in
numbers just yet. But of course we look forward to them coming in slowly but
surely.

~~~
Jd
Ah, well good luck then. Tallyho!

