Web based XUL Filemanager

By Harry Fuecks | November 20, 2004 | PHP

How about this file manager? The front end is XUL + Javascript and the back end ASP in this example (recommend Firefox 9.x+ – allow the popups from that site).

The project is hosted at http://filemanager.mozdev.org with source availabe here – there’s a server side PHP implementation as well.

Be very careful before you put this anywhere live. Right now it allows users to create and edit .php files and it may well be a good idea to review the PHP source for security.

That said think this the best example of “remote XUL” I’ve seen since the Mozilla Amazon Browser. It’s certainly more usable than any DHTML equivalent I’ve seen, considering the ability to do things like copy/cut and paste.

Written By:

Harry Fuecks

Harry has been working in corporate IT since 1994, with everything from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. Outside of office hours he runs phpPatterns: a site dedicated to software design with PHP that aims to raise standards of PHP development. He also maintains Dynamically Typed: SitePoint's PHP blog.

{ 16 comments }

Anonymous July 11, 2006 at 1:40 am
aexl June 30, 2005 at 1:31 pm: Wow, this rocks.
Does anyone know how difficult it might be to extend this to a webdav file manager?
Dorsey November 25, 2004 at 7:24 pm: I’m also very impressed by the Amazon.com live demo, but I wonder what the pedestran reaction would be to an interface that is so different than all the others? There have been lots of criticisms every time a new menu style is tried that is radically different, and what’s intuitively obvious to technies can be completely opaque to non-techies. Of course, that’s how the technology advances.
TheIdeaMan November 25, 2004 at 10:04 am: Has anyone out there considered creating an XPCOM version (usable with Mozilla products) of the Scintilla code editing component ( http://www.scintilla.org/ )? That would be an incredible addition to this file manager and to WCMSs.
Just an idea.
nicolasconnault November 25, 2004 at 8:24 am: I am VERY impressed. Extremely fast, extremely intuitive and extremely promising!
psn November 25, 2004 at 5:05 am: ive been questioning the xml family tools for sometime but xul probably has to be the most exciting, when i get time i may just try and give it ago. btw nice find.
M36Teen November 22, 2004 at 9:04 am: Ahh! Thanks Dangermouse, it worked!
Dangermouse November 22, 2004 at 5:04 am: M36Teen: its the popup blocker
kaklz November 22, 2004 at 3:09 am: Wow, that’s trully amazing!
M36Teen November 21, 2004 at 11:08 pm: Well, I got it to work from here http://filemanager.mozdev.org/
Nice stuff, I like it!
M36Teen November 21, 2004 at 11:03 pm: man, I couldn’t get past the “Launching Application” screen. :-( (FF 0.9.1 on XP Home w/SP2)
bwarrene November 21, 2004 at 9:10 pm: Definitely does not like Safari on OS 10.3.5…. ;>(
Nikobass November 21, 2004 at 1:22 pm: That’s pretty amazing.
php_man: Come on, it’s just a simple RIA. Don’t be mad for those formalities.
Dangermouse November 21, 2004 at 12:54 pm: Wow, thats excellent
Skunk November 20, 2004 at 7:52 pm: That’s fantastic! It’s the kind of demo that really opens your eyes to the possibilities of XUL – for example, imagine a hierarchical content management system based around the same kind of interface.
What with all the publicity Firefox has been getting recently now is an excellent time to be working with this kind of technology.
php_man November 20, 2004 at 7:37 pm: Looks very nice, I couldn’t get the search to work, which was a shame – I wonder if it is done client or server side – but nothing happened upon clicking the Search button.
Also a shame its GPL and no LGPL.