Consensus on Attachment Extensions..

[Yawnster]

Hmm at the moment I am trying not to exclude any of the formats from the list until its actually stopped recieving suggestions, then common sense should show which formats will and will not be used, preferably the Offical staff can help on this one as I am by no means an expert in terms of all the formats, but I think Grahams word rang true, this will not be an archiver and although I am listing a lot of formats we have to leave some for people to add themselves..

Personally I am trying to get together all the common formats used on the internet in terms of attachments, but say as _underscore_ mentioned, terragen is a program some will use, but not the majority, the list should include all formats the regular user would have so the admin wouldnt even have to think about adding them in unless the forum was specialised in any way.. (This may rule out a few of the archiving formats but overall the list should be more thorough than it is now..

Yawnster

[_underscore_]

Hmm at the moment I am trying not to exclude any of the formats from the list until its actually stopped recieving suggestions, then common sense should show which formats will and will not be used, preferably the Offical staff can help on this one as I am by no means an expert in terms of all the formats, but I think Grahams word rang true, this will not be an archiver and although I am listing a lot of formats we have to leave some for people to add themselves..

Personally I am trying to get together all the common formats used on the internet in terms of attachments, but say as _underscore_ mentioned, terragen is a program some will use, but not the majority, the list should include all formats the regular user would have so the admin wouldnt even have to think about adding them in unless the forum was specialised in any way.. (This may rule out a few of the archiving formats but overall the list should be more thorough than it is now..

Yawnster

The list should be of all pretty well known file formats. I'm not sure if Terragen falls under that, but the Gimp formats do, and Blender is pretty well known also I believe.

I'm not quite sure about RPM and DEB. (As in if they should really be on that list, I'm not asking for someone to explain them to me. )

Also, DEB, RPM, and to some extent JAR pose a question, are they really safe?

I do believe RTF should be under "Documents", also.

PLS is another format people may use, i.e., for internet radio station things.

Another is LOG, which is again, usefull for support sites.

And for audio, we of probably need WAV, too.

Another idea is to compile a list of most semi-well/well know programs and release some script to add them into the DB as a mod when phpBB3 Final is released.

[Yawnster]

The list should be of all pretty well known file formats. I'm not sure if Terragen falls under that, but the Gimp formats do, and Blender is pretty well known also I believe.

I'm not quite sure about RPM and DEB. (As in if they should really be on that list, I'm not asking for someone to explain them to me. )

Also, DEB, RPM, and to some extent JAR pose a question, are they really safe?

I do believe RTF should be under "Documents", also.

PLS is another format people may use, i.e., for internet radio station things.

Another is LOG, which is again, usefull for support sites.

And for audio, we of probably need WAV, too.

Another idea is to compile a list of most semi-well/well know programs and release some script to add them into the DB as a mod when phpBB3 Final is released.

Hmm ive added these suggestions in, coloured them to what I believe them to be.. I like the idea of the additional list, but the idea of this list was so admins didnt have to do something like that, I mean I love using attachment features and I hate to annoy admins and ask them to add extensions especially when its only something like a simple image or media format.. Thats more of the purpose of this list than being a comprehensive solution..

Yawnster

[_underscore_]

Hmm ive added these suggestions in, coloured them to what I believe them to be.. I like the idea of the additional list, but the idea of this list was so admins didnt have to do something like that, I mean I love using attachment features and I hate to annoy admins and ask them to add extensions especially when its only something like a simple image or media format.. Thats more of the purpose of this list than being a comprehensive solution..

Yawnster

Well, if some (the more less know ones, i.e., .BLEND or something) are not added, a seprate lists of lesser known ones could be created for forums on certain topics (like CG, or music, or a support forum, or...)

Personally I would like to see it possible to attach anything based on admin settings. It could be configured similarly to the settings for HTML posting in phpBB 2.x.x

Certainly there are plenty of security risks involved, but all features have that problem and it should be left up to the admin.

For example, what if the forum is for a small group of trusted friends? Then they may want to be able to attach otherwise dangerous filetypes.

I would guess that would be EXE/BAT/COM/DEB/RPM/ISO/etc.

Sure, if it's a group of people you know in real life that would be possible.

If you're running a standard web forum, that's not an option.

Maybe there'll be a mod for phpBB3 that adds a "Allow any extention" checkbox, but for most forums, allowing those sorts of dangrous files is just not an option (as I said before)

Either way, I definitely think attaching SWF (Flash) files should be possible.

-EDIT-
And yes, SWFs can be a security risk although there are ways to reduce those risks based on server / code settings.
It is already possible to use SWFs in posts however using the new BBcode, so it doesn't seem like a far leap to allow them to be attached.

I don't think anyone should allow uploading SWFs.

If need be, allow the [flash] BBCode, as it's more controllable (I believe you can disable it for sigs/pms/posts individually, am I correct?)

[Yawnster]

Final List: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25029&p=158844#p158844

Ok.. So this is the current list of what people have put together, as dhn suggested I will submit this as a bug saying that I would like to see the extensions in black and red included, I have left the others in place so as to show what else there is.. I am guessing the development team will make alterations to the list, but it looks more padded now..

I will submit this bug on Saturday sometime, so people have until then to suggest improvements

Yawnster

Edit: Updated to include descriptions and tried to clarify the positions of the majority of the file formats so that they are either in or out..

[chargedneuron]

Do I understand that file types can not be added later?

We currently use PHPBB as a forum for our developers. We are often exchanging files through the board. The file types we use are;

DXF - CAD
DWG - CAD
ASM - assembler code
BRD - PCB board
SCH - Schematic

[Graham]

The system allows further extensions to be added via the ACP - so for more specialised cases, the intention is that administrators will add the required formats themselves.

The idea here was for additional ones which have enough use to justify being included by default

[_underscore_]

The system allows further extensions to be added via the ACP - so for more specialised cases, the intention is that administrators will add the required formats themselves.

The idea here was for additional ones which have enough use to justify being included by default

I don't think these would be in the final release then:

DXF - CAD
DWG - CAD
ASM - assembler code
BRD - PCB board
SCH - Schematic

We could still release some seprate lists (i.e., via a mod) for specific sites, like programming sites, CG sites (BLEND, XCF, The Gimp Formats, Terragen, etc,) and the A/V formats. Not to mention the others...

So the Programming thing would have PHPS, ASM, Whatever, JAVA, etc.

The CG or A/V thing would have BLEND, the Gimp formats, etc.

I think that's the best way to go for some of these, although popular, limited use extensions, while the normal list would have most of the commonly used ones, like TIFF, 7Z, OpenDocument stuff and so on.

(Oooh, just got an idea: the extension mod, add's extensions via some sort of script for different types of forums - don't want to bother adding all those programming ones by hand? simply use the extention mod! )

I've modified Yawnster's list to show what I think about some of the extensions:

Extended List Of Extensions...

Black - The current extensions included by default.
Red - Extensions I feel are worthy of entering the list..
Blue - Means I am unsure of the popularity of this extension, whether or not it will be used by enough users..
Green - Unsure of security status..
Orange - Definate No.. Based on any number of factors..
Purple - Not viable in terms of the Internet

Images

• BLEND - Used for CG, not enough use here
• GBH - Gimp specific, good for image manipulation forums, though
• GIH - Same as GBH
• PAT - Gimp again
• PSD - Potentially usefull, dunno
• SVG - Unknown?
• XCF - Well, if we have PsD, we should have this for the opensource people.

Archives

• CAB - Never used it, like afew others
• DEB - Potential for abuse
• JAR - Potential for abuse
• RAR - Anyone know of a free un-rar utility?
• RPM - Potential for abuse

Media

• SWF - I don't think it's a good idea

[/list][/list]

Ok.. So this is the current list of what people have put together, as dhn suggested I will submit this as a bug saying that I would like to see the extensions in black and red included, I have left the others in place so as to show what else there is.. I am guessing the development team will make alterations to the list, but it looks more padded now..

I will submit this bug on Saturday sometime, so people have until then to suggest improvements

Yawnster

[Yawnster]

Hmm.. _underscore_ well the SVG format is for vector based graphics.. (Ability to make them any size you wish without compromising on quality)..

As for the formats, I have taken on board your advice and have listed each extension I feel will not make the cut with a reason why..

Anyway, enough editing for a while, Yawnster

PS.. I like the idea of having extension list for particular forums, I will investigate it once phpBB3.0.0 has gone live I think.. would probably be best, also I may have some more time then

[_underscore_]

Hmm.. _underscore_ well the SVG format is for vector based graphics.. (Ability to make them any size you wish without compromising on quality)..

As for the formats, I have taken on board your advice and have listed each extension I feel will not make the cut with a reason why..

Anyway, enough editing for a while, Yawnster

Eh, PLS is a playlist.

It can be used for streaming, yes, but also for playlists, i.e., "Rate my playlist" [optionally include "plz plz plz k thx"]

PS.. I like the idea of having extension list for particular forums, I will investigate it once phpBB3.0.0 has gone live I think.. would probably be best, also I may have some more time then

I'm going to go poke around at the attachment ext table and see how that would be done.