advanced file input for upload questions.

[njdubois]

I understand why the input tag has limitations for security reasons, because there is a lot of different technologies out there I feel that asking the community is the way to go.

 

I have read up, and there are many different methods to do what I want to do.  Being that there are steps I have no control over as the developer, the starting source of the audio file, and the format it is in being the major ones.  I don't know what to do?  AJAX?  Java Applets?  There are so many steps to the process that I want to pick the brains of the community and see what you would do?

 

So here is whats going on:

 

You know when you call a service and they say this call may be monitored for quality..blah blah blah?  Well, I work for a client who listens to those calls for a few customers, grades them and sends the results back to the customer.

 

Currently, he uses a provider that records the calls and allows him to download the audio file.  This is where is gets odd because of the 3 providers he uses, one insists on providing .AU files instead of .mp3 files.  And it isn't every time.  The end of the process has the customer being able to login to a webpage and hear the call...but the stupid flash plug in can't read AU files, but more on that part later.

 

Before the webpage had anything to do with it, I had developed a vb.net 08 windows app that linked to his godaddy hosted mysql database.  And because it was all windows based, when the time came to start building a profiles system and provide the calls for customers, I could convert and upload the audio file using my current skill set no problem.

 

Well, now we are moving to as much web based applications as possible.  So I have the equivalent of the windows app done up in PHP and HTML running in a web browser control on a vb.net windows app so that I can handle the audio conversions.  This is where it gets tricky.

 

Right now, the user has to click the convert audio button that runs another application I developed that uses a open sourced command line audio converter to check all files in the audio folder from the dropbox client and if a file needs to be converted it does so automatically.  The user then has to upload the audio file to the ftp server.  Either from within the php script, or from the windows app.  The windows app knows nothing about whats going on in the php script and php has no idea about the vb app or any of the folders the files are in.  When uploading the call, i need to make a record in an sql database linking that file to the call grade record's ID.

 

So, here is what I have.

dropbox client on my clients computer.  This way I can update developed software and get it to him with ease.  He runs everything from inside the folder dropbox creates.

In dropbox there is a folder "audio" inside that folder more folders "Client A" "Client B" and so on, inside those, a folder for each month and inside that month is the audio files for that call.

\dropbox\audio\client a\march\filename.mp3

 

My client downloads the audio files from the provider and puts the in the correct folders.

 

Inside the app, I know I am on client A, and working on a call that happened in march.  So, when my client clicks the upload button, I want it to default to that folder, thus minimizing the amount of clicks to get to anything, which is important to me.

 

I can't do any kind of auto upload because I need to know an ID number at some point and vb.net doesn't know the ID number, php doesn't know the path, I need to do a conversion some times, and I have zero control over what the file is named other than trusting the client to name it in some pre determined format properly

CLIENT-NAME-DATE-SCORE.au

or

CLIENT-NAME-DATE-SCORE.mp3

 

but this isn't going to happen.....

 

If I could use ASP.net and my much more expanded knowledge of visual basic (than php) I could probably achieve what I am aiming for with minimal learning time.  But the entire application is already done in php.  Also means my client would need a hosting upgrade.  So ASP.net is out of the question.

 

So there is my problem.  Whats the best way to handle this, doing as much of the work with code without user input.  I would like it to be 3 clicks, click upload audio, select the file, click ok. 

The program would then test to see if the file needs to be converted, upload it, save the record to the correct table linking the audio file with the call grade record.  Done.

 

Any suggestions?

Thanks, really, thanks for reading all of this.  I hope it makes some sense!

Nick

 

I don't know if that is even possible!