So are you suggesting an input element that accepts directories dragged onto it, but has no way of choosing a directory through a system dialog?
-John On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Ojan Vafai <[email protected]> wrote: > But there is already a default UI that lets you select a folder, a file or > both (drag-drop). I don't see why this forces the UA to do anything. Just > because you can select both folders and files doesn't mean the UA needs to > expose extra UI on top of drag-drop to let you do so. Again, no more so than > they already have to expose extra UI to deal with multiple inputs. > Ojan > > On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 2:28 PM, John Gregg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> The most relevant issue is that in Windows/Mac/Linux, there are no system >> dialogs that let the user select either a folder or a file. They each have >> separate "choose a file" and "choose a folder" dialogs. I think the logical >> reason for that is that when selecting a file, clicking a directory means to >> enter that directory and select from its files, not to choose that directory >> as the result of selection. >> Thus we would force UAs to reinvent file-picker interfaces in order to >> deal with an input element that allows both folders and files. >> -John >> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Ojan Vafai <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> It's unfortunate that users need to distinguish between single and >>> multiple file inputs. That's not something we can change at this point. The >>> web started with single file inputs. We can avoid adding a third type of >>> file input they need to understand though. >>> Also, what should happen if you drag files and folders onto a "multiple" >>> or "directory" input? Just drop the ones that are of the wrong type? I >>> cannot imagine users making sense of that. >>> It's not clear to me from your original email what issues you encountered >>> during implementation that led to this proposal. Is it just the leaf name >>> conflict issue? I agree that's a problem, but maybe there's a different >>> solution to that? >>> Ojan >>> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 12:53 PM, John Gregg <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> That's a fair question, but how is it clear today whether an input can >>>> accept multiple files vs. a single file using drag-and-drop? Currently if >>>> I >>>> drag multiple files onto an input that doesn't have 'multiple', I get only >>>> the first one. (In Chrome.) >>>> Some good default text from the UA, like "Choose folder..." instead of >>>> "Choose file...", would go far to solve that, I think. >>>> -John >>>> On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Ojan Vafai <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> What about drag-drop? I should be able to drag a directory, a file, or >>>>> a list of files onto an input, no? If not, how is this distinction shown >>>>> to >>>>> users? How will it be clear to users when they can do one or the other? >>>>> Ojan >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 3:53 PM, John Gregg <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> For context, Ian Fette started a thread about uploading directories of >>>>>> files in >>>>>> December: http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-December/024455.html >>>>>> >>>>>> At that time, it was thought that directory upload could be >>>>>> implemented by a UA in response to a <input type="file" multiple> tag >>>>>> using >>>>>> different UI only, and modifying the FileAPI spec to allow path >>>>>> information >>>>>> in the form >>>>>> >>>>>> input.files[0].name="1.jpg" >>>>>> input.files[0].path="a" >>>>>> input.files[1].name="2.jpg" >>>>>> input.files[1].path="a/b" >>>>>> input.files[2].name="3.jpg" >>>>>> input.files[2].path="a/c" >>>>>> >>>>>> I've started developing a prototype of this in WebKit/Chromium. Based >>>>>> on what I've encountered so far, I would like to propose adding directory >>>>>> upload functionality using an explicit new 'directory' attribute on the >>>>>> file >>>>>> input element. >>>>>> The existing behavior of <input type="file" multiple> would not >>>>>> change, but when processing <input type="file" directory>, the UA would >>>>>> display a directory selection UI and store the path information, and not >>>>>> allow individual files to be selected. It would allow multiple files to >>>>>> have the same leaf name (.name attribute), as long as the paths were >>>>>> different. The path attributes would include the name of the chosen >>>>>> directory >>>>>> >>>>>> This would be preferable for several reasons: >>>>>> - Most built-in file system UI on major platforms (Windows/Mac/Linux) >>>>>> have distinct dialogs for choosing files and choosing directories. >>>>>> Allowing >>>>>> the UA to use these directly makes sense rather than creating hybrids. >>>>>> - Avoiding "leaf name" conflicts in a directory tree is not feasible >>>>>> in many applications -- asking a user to ensure unique photo names in a >>>>>> large set of albums before uploading would fail to meet that use case. >>>>>> Therefore HTML documents should know in advance whether the path >>>>>> information will be relevant in the eventual storage of the files. Sites >>>>>> currently using <input type="file" multiple> would have compatibility >>>>>> problems with an implementation which allowed conflicting file names >>>>>> along >>>>>> different paths. >>>>>> What are your thoughts about adding the 'directory' attribute? >>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>> -John >>>> >>> >> > >
