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AboutUploading

<< WikiStyles | Page list | PmWiki.UploadQuickReference? >>

Help about uploading files

The only way to upload files to this site is by using the file manager as described further down. Note that method to upload files described on the page PmWiki.Uploads does not work at this site.

Related links

• Adding material to this site.

This page contains the following sections:

Passwords

Uploading a file requires that you specify a username (lyx) and a password (ask on the user's list for the current password). Unfortunately someone started uploading spam when the list was published here.

How to upload a file

You can use the file manager to upload files. Just use the upload-link at the top right corner, which takes you to this address:

where you have to login using the username and password given above. Please note that you need to have both JavaScript and cookies enabled for this to work.

Then use the file manager to navigate to the directory in which you wish to upload the file(s), or optionally create a new directory. Finally you upload the files...

Caveat: There have been reports that you must use the form for uploading multiple files in order for the uploads to work properly.

How to link to an uploaded file

All uploaded files, for all fields, are stored under a directory called uploads/ with the URI http://wiki.lyx.org/uploads/. The prefix uploads: will always point to this directory, so linking to for instance the file

	uploads/Site/aboutUploading/anUploadedFile.txt

should be done using this markup:

	uploads:/Site/aboutUploading/anUploadedFile.txt

Please avoid linking to files by writing the URI explicitly. Instead, use the prefix uploads: and specify the location of the file fully since relative paths are not supported any more. In other words, it no longer matters on what wiki page you create the link, always specify its location relative to the uploads/-directory.

Please also verify that links you create work properly, i.e. click on them to see that they work and that they point to the correct file (in case you accidentally made a spelling error).

Where should I store a file, i.e. what path?

You can store files anywhere in the uploads/-directory, but it is typically better to at least place the file under a directory with the same name as the current group. In addition, unless the file is relevant for most pages in a group, it's probably even better to create an additional subdirectory and place the file there. For instance, this page is Site.AboutUploading, so the current group is Site/. Files common to this group could simply be placed in uploads/Site/, but if we have a file called e.g. anUploadedFile.txt that is only relevant to this page, it's better placed as uploads/Site/aboutUploading/anUploadedFile.txt.

Note that lower case was used for the first letter to separate it from the name of this page. In this case, the file can thus be found at this location:

	uploads:/Site/aboutUploading/anUploadedFile.txt

In some cases, e.g. when several files belong together but the topic is still general, it even makes sense to use an additional subdirectory. Here is an example:

Also see the page about adding material.

Allowed file types

Most file types may be uploaded. If you have problems uploading a file and suspect this to be a problem, ask about it on the developer's list.

Allowed file sizes

The size of a file that can be uploaded is limited to 1 MB regardless of the extension. If you think that certain file extensions should be allowed to be bigger, send a mail to the developers list.

Note: Because of a configuration issue with the web-server, the practical limit for uploading files is 512kB.

Uploading large files

Unless you are a developer (see the secton below), it is not possible for you to upload large files. Please one of the following methods in this case:

• Upload it to one of the LyX ftp-sites (see ?? for more information)
• Contact one of the developers and ask for help (lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org)
  • In order to get the file to the developer, you can use a service such as http://www.yousendit.com/ to "email" it. Other similar services are for instance ... ???

Manually uploading files — only for developers

Files larger than the limit can be uploaded by developers with access but it is more complicated and requires some tricks in order to achieve the correct permissions. Here's the correct permissions of a typical directory:

[chr@aussie.lyx.org ~]$ cd /home/lyx/www/pmwiki/uploads; ls -ld Windows/
drwxrwsr-x  10 apache wiki 4096 12 jul 23.44 Windows

notice the sticky group bit "s". Here's the correct permissions for a file

Creating a directory with correct permissions

Use the file manager to create directories... it's annoying and slow compared to mkdir dir but there's no alternative.

Uploading a file with correct permissions

First use the file manager to upload a dummy file with the name of the new file that you wish to upload. Instead of uploading the file, you can simply use the file manager to create it as a text file. Then simply copy the file to it's proper location. The overwritten file will now contain the correct permissions.

As far as I know, uploading many files requires you to first create each file separately using the file manager. You could simply upload a compressed archive instead. chr

Verifying the permissions

Whenever you have manually fiddled with uploaded files, please verify that you have not changed ownership improperly by executing the following commands on aussie.lyx.org.

cd /home/lyx/www/pmwiki/uploads
find /home/lyx/www/pmwiki/uploads -not -type l -not -user apache -exec ls -ld {} \;
find /home/lyx/www/pmwiki/uploads -not -type l -not -group wiki -exec ls -ld {} \;

General tips

• Postscript files typically become a lot smaller when compressed using bzip2 or gzip. So compress large (>100kB) postscript files before uploading them.
• PDF files can also benefit from being compressed.
• If you can save a file in the version 1.5 or later of the PDF-format, it allows something called "Fast Web View". This allows the person downloading the document to start reading it while it downloads. And if the reader e.g. clicks on a link that refers to a much later page, this one is downloaded next and the rest later.

Q: What format should I use for an archive?

On Unix/Linux, gzip (.gz), zip (.zip) and bzip2 (.bz2) are easy to use and typically already installed. Windows user often use zip (.zip) or Rar (.rar), and even though Rar is available for Unix/Linux, it is AFAIK not part of the standard.
Below is a table with some sizes of compressed postscript file (the PDF version is there for comparison):