Forum .LRN Q&A: Re: LRN Application Status Discussion - File Storage

Nice Idea Al. Okay, here is what I envision:

• All files shall be indexed when uploaded and their content stored as clear text along with the object created, thereby allowing full text search within documents using tsearch2 or intermedia, regardless whether the files are stored in the datbase or not.
• Use bittorrent technologies. The idea of using Bittorrent hash sums to save some diskspace and link files together has been in existance for some time now. To sum it up:
  • Each file will store an additional bittorrent hash sum.
  • If a hash is already in existance, there will be only a link to that content instead of uploading a new file.
  • OpenACS acts as a bittorrent client for this file. This way a file can be retrieved using P2P methods.
  • It is not necessary to upload a file to the server. Giving the server the bittorent link will enable OpenACS to download the file from the file sharing network or just promote the link. This way you can have closed user groups who can share the file.
  • The hash value can be checked against lists from the RIAA or the Movie Association to detect illegal content. Same can be done the other way round (if we detect illegal content deliver the HASH value back to the RIAA).
• Use more icons for the file types.
• Use color coding in various dimensions (this is actually something we might consider in other packages as well).
  • Rating (if the rating module was installed)
  • Permissions (public, group wide, some people, private)
  • Relevance (e.g. calculated how often the file is reused in communitites that I'm a member of)
  • Last time changed
  Keep in mind though, that color coding is seperate from sorting.
• Easy integration with SMB shares (I know WebDAV is cool, but I imagine most sysadmins would like to have the ability to link OpenACS files into an existing SMB Domain and link the domain controller together with the WebDAV shares).
• Last one, though I did not look into it to clearly (but got as feedback in one training): Easy way to switch between live revisions and the posibility to restrict setting a version live only to the owner of the file

Sadly for the UAB these recommendations are mostly in functionality along with technical implications, not at all from a User experience point of view.

I've just sorted a few dozen files in a class where students had not followed consistent naming conventions, where a half dozen files are being added each week, and where I faced a basic problem of organizing group work. I created some directories and, to move things around, ended up doing a lot of clicking and dreaming of drag-and-drop, or at least of selecting bunches of files and then making one move. Is drag-and-drop difficult to do with openacs? Are there other simply sorting principles/methods we might consider?

I also think notifications are the cat's meow, and I'm wondering if others think adding a notification feature to the file storage makes sense: that when you add a file you are given a choice to post a notice in an existing forum, for example, so you don't have to go to all the trouble of copying the url, then going into the forum and building a link. I also like this idea as it suggests further integration of existing communications functionality, and specifically, with notifications, the encouragement of timely responses as a conversation moves forward.