Forum .LRN Q&A: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break.

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1: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break.
Posted by Dave Bauer on 04/21/04 03:38 AM
After testing with every combination of MS Web Folders I could find, it looks like the <span>#/span>file-storage.Message-key# folder URLs will have to go. The main issue is that every version of Web Folders I have tried breaks in a different way when there is a # in the URL.

The problem might be if someone has posted a link with # in the folder url in a forum posting or other place it will not work if the folder url is changed.

If might be possible to capture requests with the # and convert them if it results in a not found error if this will be a problem.

Any comments from .LRN users?

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2: Re: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break. (response to 1)
Posted by Deirdre Kane on 04/21/04 01:40 PM
Dave,

If you are saying what I think you are saying - that links to files in file storage that are within news items, custom portlet content, forums, calendar events, etc. - will be broken with this change, then that has serious ramifications for Sloan users because there are many classes and communities whose content is structured around linking to file storage.  Re-linking to all that - and finding all the broken links - would be a HUGE undertaking and inconvenience for us.

DeeDee

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3: Re: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break. (response to 1)
Posted by Dave Bauer on 04/21/04 02:56 PM
Ok good, this is the kind of feedback I needed.

Can you find an example link? Are they using the file-storage/file?file_id=12345 or the file-storage/view/folder/filename type links?

Only the second type of URL would change with the update I am proposing.

One solution is to create a symlink from the old folder name to the new folder name, so that regular web links will be resolved correctly, and the webdav urls will also work. The only client software that seems to have a problem with # is the various MS Web Folders variations.

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4: Re: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break. (response to 1)
Posted by Dave Bauer on 04/21/04 04:46 PM
Deirdre,

If you do not have the internationalized version of OpenACS installed, this is not an issue for your users.

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5: Re: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break. (response to 1)
Posted by Deirdre Kane on 04/21/04 05:37 PM
Dave,

We don't have the internationalized version yet, but we plan to upgrade to it this summer.  As for your first question, the links are normally, but not always, to the file id # itself.

DeeDee

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6: Re: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break. (response to 1)
Posted by Dave Bauer on 04/21/04 07:43 PM
Deirdre,

Then Sloan should be fine as long as I fix this before you upgrade.

I'll need to get feedback from the sites that are using the i18n features.

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7: Re: # in file-storage URLs has to go. Existing links will break. (response to 1)
Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 04/25/04 07:49 PM
Matthias just gave me an update on this (he has discussed it with a few people and thought about it) and the consensus is to forget the localization of the folder names (get rid of the <span>#</span>blah.blah#).

He pointed me here: https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=174911

Would also fix this bug: https://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug%5fnumber=1518

Carl

P.S. On a related note: Vienna showed their modifications to .LRN in Heidelberg on Friday and a few people commented on the sanity of using unique ids for communities'/courses' rather than what we have now.