215673 - it is not possible to upload a file to an ftp server

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: File Handling, enhancement)

Description

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030808 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030808 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1+

This bug report is a request to impliment a feature in fireird simila to the
File -> Upload File menu in Netscpae 4.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Bill Mason]

->General
Sev->Enhancement

Comment 2

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

This will not be implemented. FTP clients are far better at this and should be
used for file uploading.

Comment 3

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Verified using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b)
Gecko/20030817 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1+

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

Mozilla Seamonkey has this feature now (from bug 24867).

Comment 5

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 263794 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Gilles Durys]

*** Bug 275024 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Now that the suite has this, we might want to think about this again.
Mike, what do you think, since you verified the bug?

Comment 8

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

To elaborate on why I requested this in the first place, I work for a large
company that always used Netscape as the browser standard.  One of the main
reasons for this was that Netscape thgough version 4 supported this and it
worked correctly via an http proxy.  IE does NOT support FTP uplodas via an http
proxy.

Yes there are better things to use for FTP, but they don't appear to support
automatic proxy congiration via a pac file so are NOT a solution for the average
user in a large company with a corporate firewall.

The fact that Netscape 6 came out without without the FTP upload capability is
what prompted my Company with 85,000 employees at the time to switch to using IE
and the standard browser.  There was increasing pressure to do this and the fact
that IE did not support FTP upload trough a proxy had prevented the change being
made sooner, so removal of this feature was kind of the straw that broke the
camels back.

So, given the fact that we STILL do not have a good solution for FTP uploads for
the company and there is a lot of interest in Firefox due to the IE security
issues, inclusion of this feature could help in making Firefox the new standard
browser for the Company.

That said, since the suite now has this feature, the backend code must now all
be working and supported so it is probably a relatively simple change to add a
UI for this.  This could probably be made a really simple extension. 

Comment 9

[Zook Valem]

Unable to upload file(s)/folder(s) is related to bug #245791 for Mozilla (Not
Firefox)...

Comment 10

[Closed Account]

I personally think a browser should just be a browser and nothing else, and I'm
pretty sure some other people would agree with me.

However, people do like to use their browsers for other things, and this is how
extensions were born.

Check out http://fireftp.mozdev.org/ - I'm not entirely sure if this supports
http proxies for uploading but its worth a shot.

Comment 11

[Closed Account]

Marking this bug as a WONTFIX. Sorry for the invalid markup as INVALID, bugzilla
moved down the list and I didn't think.

Comment 12

[Robin Monks]

Moving to file handling...

Comment 13

[Wolfgang Schwarz]

Perhaps the best solution would be to fix bug 208385 (drag and drop support for
FTP) and make that available to Firefox. This will not clutter the UI, and also
provide the possibility to upload several files at once. 

There are sites where ordinary users are supposed to upload many files (say, all
their holiday pictures), which cannot be done easily with HTML forms. By far the
simplest possibility is to let them drag and drop the files to an FTP directory.
Sadly, this means that such services are currently IE-only. Explaining to our
users that they should install an FTP client is simply not an option.

Comment 14

[Vladimir]

(In reply to comment #2)
> This will not be implemented. FTP clients are far better at this and should be
> used for file uploading.

On the same grounds they may exclude many other features or even stop the
development altogether by suggesting to use several other browsers with partly
better features.

Comment 15

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

*** Bug 317444 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 320816 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

-> TAKING

Comment 18

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Attachment: proposed patch

This patch adds the same functionality to Firefox that was added to the suite and Camino in bug 24867.  It adds a "File Upload..." choice to the File menu.  The choice is disabled if the current page protocol is not ftp.

This is basically the functionality that was in Netscape navigator version 4 and below.

As it is not real pretty and a drag-and-drop interface is probably what would make more sense for Firefox, this is implemented with a defaulted to false preference (browser.upload.enabled).

At this point for a review I am really looking for an answer to if this is something that would even be considered for checkin.  If the answer is yes, then an actual code review would be in order.

Comment 19

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Attachment: As an extension

I created an extension that implements this.  I thought I would post it in the bug, as I suspect that this might be the final resolution.

Comment 20

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Comment on attachment 275379 [details]
As an extension

A newer version of the extension is available at:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5460

If you like it, please post a review.

Comment 21

[Tuomas]

<a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=261479#c23">Already commented on another similar bug</a>, but still wanted to say that in my opinion proper ftp/sftp support in Firefox would be a great thing!

Many web applications have attachments which are difficult to use inside the web browser (like copying whole directories etc.). HTTP has also some limitations in file transfers, like the size limit in file uploads. Adding proper FTP/SFTP support, including a good file manager for remote files, would enable web applications to integrate FTP/SFTP for file handling.

Comment 22

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to comment #20)
> (From update of attachment 275379 [details])
> A newer version of the extension is available at:
> 
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5460
> 
> If you like it, please post a review.
> 
I removed my add-on from AMO.  It is now available on my personal webserver at:

http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/firefox/extensions/ftpupload/

So now you can just get it.  You no longer have to sign up for anything.

Comment 23

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

Why did you remove it from AMO?

Comment 24

[Tuomas]

Have you considered removing FTP support completely? I mean, mailto: -addresses can be opened very easily in the default applications for email, same goes for telnet: and others (like sftp: if there is an application registered for it). Just try to open ftp: links automatically in the users default ftp-app.

I believe there is an full featured FTP app as default in almost all systems. This is why I don't see that limited FTP support in Firefox is really needed...

Comment 25

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 273583 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed patch

I don't think this is a core feature for enough Firefox users to warrant inclusion, and is best left for extensions/FTP apps.

Comment 26

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to comment #25)
> (From update of attachment 273583 [details] [diff] [review])
> I don't think this is a core feature for enough Firefox users to warrant
> inclusion, and is best left for extensions/FTP apps.

The latest version of my extension to add this functionality is available here:

http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/firefox/extensions/ftpupload/

Thanks to code contributed by François Borlet-Hote, it now supports FTP uploads via drag-and-drop.

Comment 27

[Peter Lairo]

(In reply to comment #26)
> The latest version of my extension to add this functionality is available here:
> 
> http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/firefox/extensions/ftpupload/

Could you please make it available on https://addons.mozilla.org? I just don't feel "comfortable" installing add-ons for unchecked sources. Thanks!

PS. I really wished this were a core feature.

Comment 28

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to comment #27)
> (In reply to comment #26)
> > The latest version of my extension to add this functionality is available here:
> > 
> > http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/firefox/extensions/ftpupload/
> 
> Could you please make it available on https://addons.mozilla.org? I just don't
> feel "comfortable" installing add-ons for unchecked sources. Thanks!
> 
> PS. I really wished this were a core feature.

See comment #22.  I had it hosted on AMO, but the AMO site requires the extensions to live in the sandbox area until a sufficient number of people download it from there and provide positive reviews.  To access it from the sandbox, you are required to sign up for an AMO account and then when you try to download an extensions from there you get a scary message the gist of which is that extensions downloaded from this area might cause great harm to your system and kill your puppy.

The extension got exactly zero downloads from the sandbox area because, as it turns out, people are less comfortable downloading extensions from the AMO sandbox than they are from my website.

Comment 29

[Peter Lairo]

Why did you remove it from AMO? Is it so much extra work to upload new versions to AMO? If you don't put it on AMO, it will *never* get out of the sandbox. Does the download from your site provide auto-updates? Would you please reconsider putting it back on AMO?

PS. Your description on AMO lacks a bit of detail or a screenshot: "FTP Upload adds the "Upload File..." item to the File menu to permit uploading files to FTP sites." That can't be all. What's the UI for uploading look like.

Your add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5460

Another similar add-on? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4724

Comment 30

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to comment #25)
> (From update of attachment 273583 [details] [diff] [review])
> I don't think this is a core feature for enough Firefox users to warrant
> inclusion, and is best left for extensions/FTP apps.

Well, by the same reasoning, perhaps the support for ftp: URLs should be removed altogether and left for FTP applications.

Comment 32

[Ma Hsiao-Chun]

FTP upload is used in at least two universities I attended/attending and doing FTP upload in a lab is always a showcase for IE.

Comment 33

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

My FTP Upload extension available from here http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/firefox/extensions/ftpupload/  adds this functionality.

Comment 34

[Ma Hsiao-Chun]

Thank you for your work Bill.

But an extension cannot solve the whole problem. In university computer labs, user settings are often not saved; extensions get lost after logout. Therefore, people would prefer other solutions like IE on Windows.

I've reported a similar bug to Chromium; I'd try my luck with them.

Comment 35

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Well, would be more the University deciding the extension will be included as part of their standard Firefox install.

Comment 36

[Ma Hsiao-Chun]

BTW, Bill, current latest version of Firefox is 25.0.1 (I'm using Ubuntu so I get latest Firefox from system upgrade) while your extension supports up to Firefox 4?

Comment 37

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

I corrected the page to say it is compatible with current versions