NefMoto

Its ridiculously annoying to have to dig through posts to download files as *attachments* to posts

Would be nice to have some sort of useful download area that *isn't* tied to the damn forum... also preferably one that can be mirrored to a backup site

+1

There are a few options for this that I have been mulling over:
1) Use the new NefMoto GitHub repository
2) Create a public folder on the NefMoto server
3) Create a public web app on the NefMoto server

Does anyone have any major preferences?

I am planning on adding more functionality to the NefMoto website that will integrate with some new features in the NefMoto desktop software. The NefMoto website will eventually include support for searches for files by year, make, model, etc. This will be represented as a PHP web app backed by a database.

IMO the github thing is really only good for binaries that are directly tied to the repo that is used to build them..

In any case, you'd probably want your own custom setup for indexing/searching/organizing the sorts of things you have here (tunes, tools, documents, etc), since the github thing is pretty rudimentary.


Anyway, you'd probably want to put it all in some sort of directory heirarchy anyway (so the direct urls aren't strange cryptic flat namespace abominations).

I agree that a directory hierarchy would be best. It would also work well as a public file space and a file store that gets referenced by database entries.

I am hesitant to create a writable public area for users to abuse. But it shouldn't be very hard to make a PHP file submission page that allows you to submit files with certain restrictions. On the file submission page the user could also specify make, model, year, etc for the file. Then the submission process could auto create the directory structure for where the file is located. Then I could make the public area viewable by everyone but read only, except to the PHP submission page.

There are pros and cons to both. So many people would likely leech the entire archive and then go on about their merry way. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I've learned a lot from simply browsing through all the threads on my way to download tons of files.

Moderated queue?

Definitely should be moderated/centrally managed. For the more obscure stuff, the forums are fine. At worst, maybe make some sort of index of uploaded files that people can browse.

I've made some progress getting a working solution implemented. Nothing can I let people publicly test out yet, but wanted to let people know it is being worked on.

Currently my plan is to only let people submit and search for specific types of files: ECU tunes, map definitions, data logging definitions, and tech docs. The files related to ECUs will be searchable based on year, make, model, etc.

The ECU files will also be validated by a background process that runs on a schedule. The background process will handle validating the ECU file part numbers, checksums, etc, and will update the submitted information. If there are any invalid files, they will be automatically deleted.

I thought this was the best way to make the files reliable and searchable, but this does prevent people from uploading just any useful file.

Sounds nifty