Showing progress of regular file uploads (not flash ones)

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Since of PHP 5.4 there is feature, which allows developer to determine real-time upload information of currently uploaded file:

http://docs.php.net/manual/en/session.upload-progress.php 

Before that we were forced to use flash uploader (as we actually do it now) or use Perl scripts, since Perl always was having this feature.

Nevertheless I still think that we should use upload library like http://www.plupload.com/ to manage our uploads because it can display upload progress even if you don't have Flash installed.

Also it's been actively developing to support all latest browsers versions.

--
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[Dmitry A.]

Hi Alex,

I have completed a quick review as well as some tests of proposed Upload script. To be honest - I can't say I am very impressed by it. Yes, they support not only Flash as we do, but also HTML5 and some other things (Yahoo, Google Gears), but in my opinion it's still too early to switch just because of this.

I can't say that our Flash uploader is terrible - it's not. Yes, it might have a few bugs, but I never saw a single user complain that he has no Flash installed on his PC or MAC.

That being said - I believe we should stay where we are now and keep our options/eyes opens to see how PL Upload or other scripts evolve and grow.In other words, I see no immediate need to replace our Flash uploader - do you?

Cheers!

DA

[Phil]

Dmitry, Alex,

I would like to share my experience on websites I'm running for years. I have a very wide audience, and I'm not running "tech-oriented" websites.

I was wondering why users wasn't uploading photos, and I've installed a video recording script, to see what users are doing.

I've discovered that yes, there are really more than you think users who don't have Flash. I wasn't believing that before seeing it.

Let me give figures on one website only, for past 3 months, for users without Flash:

- 5,1% because they run iOS

- 2,79% under Safari (OsX)

- 1,20% under Windows

- 0,44% Android

- 0,20% Blackberry

+ minor other browsers, such as Nokia, Windows Phone...

Total 9,82% don't have it ! Hopefully I'm not having so many visits from mobile phones...

With the booming of mobile users (smartphone + tablets), and the willing from Apple to quit Flash, it doesn't seem wise to "stay where we are", we'd just loose time and user's interest... And knowing HTML5 fast move (because all tablets will have it), it seems to me a must-have to support native uploads features.

phil

Envoyé avec Sparrow

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Maybe nobody here knows, that SWFUpload script, which we used as a base for our upload script was just an experiment from a College student to test if he can make Flash upload files. Nothing more.

That student was very surprised that his script (that haven't then been developed at all) gained such big popularity.

That other script is more like a complete upload solution, that is being actively developed and have fallbacks for all kinds of situations. Even if you don't have anything at all installed it can use regular upload control internally in a hidden iframe and still display nice upload progress bar to user.

About immediate replace - maybe no, but since we don't have real user feedback from every website that uses our flash uploader (I don't believe that users of websites that we create for our customers would contact us back directly or through a customer to tell that their upload has failed for some reason), then it's same like finding a black cat in dark room. You can't find it until somebody will shed some lite on you :)

[Dmitry A.]

Thank you both for your input on this.

I agree we could do better than we have now. Let's keep track of how that Script evolves and consider switching at any convenient for us moment.

DA