[RFC] Multiple file uploads

[_hsr]

I've had the chance to test it on the following browsers,

Opera 11.x > defaults to flash
Chrome 17.x > defaults to html5
Firefox 9.x > defaults to html5
Safari > defaults to html5
IE 7(compatibility mode) > defaults to silverlight
IE 8(compatibility mode) > defaults to flash
IE 9 > defaults to silverlight
IE 10 alpha > defaults to flash

[Fyorl]

From what I can tell, only Chrome and FF4+ support everything we want. Plupload doesn't mention IE in its HTML5 list so I'd assume IE8 has little to no support for the features and IE9 might have some of them.

@_hsr: What's the name of your branch? I can't see any promising branch names in your phpbb3 fork.

[Oleg]

I was able to find http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/presto28/file/ with a simple search. How functional is that?

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... ifications

And: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2 ... atures.ars with http://html5labs.ibstage.interop.msftla ... eapi/info/

Looks to me like all browsers are going to support html5.

[_hsr]

That looks promising.
Just using html5 is not a good idea imo, there should be a fallback option, just in case the user has not upgraded to the latest version. I say use html5 and gears/flash, where gears/flash be the fallback for html5. And the old upload mechanism should exist, they should only be hidden via css.
plupload needs a sever side script to manage the uploads, so existing code need not be altered.

[Fyorl]

Yes, all browsers will of course eventually support HTML5 so this feature is future-proof for that. The question that we need to ask is whether we want to add support for this feature for other browsers by way of Flash or some other method or just allow those other browsers to fall back to the old upload method.

[callumacrae]

Fall back to old method, IMO.

[bantu]

Yes, all browsers will of course eventually support HTML5 so this feature is future-proof for that. The question that we need to ask is whether we want to add support for this feature for other browsers by way of Flash or some other method or just allow those other browsers to fall back to the old upload method.

I guess this ultimately depends on which browsers support the HTML5 engine.

My general feeling is that we should not support Flash and Silverlight because they are propritary. As far as I know Gears and BrowserPlus are open source software and could be supported if it makes sense.

[DavidIQ]

Silverlight is "dying" (slowly) as well so I would say no to a solution that uses it.

[brunoais]

Flash & silverlight & Java (for web) are dying and (just to be complete) ActiveX is dead. Java still tries to stand but I don't know how much is it going to hold on.
Flash is abandoned and silverlight only works correctly in the IE. Javascript is winning all of them one by one.
I'd say no to Flash, silverlight, activeX (if it were proposed) even though I wouldn't say no to java (as long as it wasn't an applet, if it's an applet I say no).

[naderman]

I really think we should simply go with an HTML5 only solution. Anyone on an older browser will simple find the same limitations that current attachment upload has. That's no problem, as people will be upgrading their browsers over time, and more browsers will add proper support for this. Either way it will at worst stay the same for those users.

I'm entirely against shipping any flash or silverlight with phpBB for the reasons Andreas pointed out.