Uploading Folders & Images

Upload Technology Decision

Our decision is to move forward with Browser embedded Flash for the File Upload component. However, we're using a very interesting open-source Flash component. Full details on the component can be found at: http://swfupload.org.

The file and folder upload options are:

Web browser HTML
Javascript enhanced HTML (DHTML/Ajax)
Browser embedded Flash
AIR aka. Desktop Flash or HTML/Javascript (formerly Macromedia's Apollo Project)
Browser embedded Java
Desktop Java

Browser embedded Flash

Features:

Ability to select multiple items using the standard OS file picker

Examples:

Flickr:
- Article from Ajaxian
SWFUpload:
- Open source (MIT license) Flash / JavaScript library to take advantage of Flash 9 multiple-upload capabilities.
- The jQuery UI folks appear to be building a jQuery extension for this library but no new work has been checked in since 10/20/07 so the status isn't clear. But that doesn't preclude us doing something on our own using this same library.

Concerns:

Opensourc-i-ness: Although many aspects of Flash are open source. Flash is still considered by most to be a proprietary format, owned and controlled by Adobe.
Accessibility: Adobe has made great improvements to accessibility in Flash 8, but the reality on the ground is that it is still a lot of work to make Flash accessible.
- Abobe's Flash CS3 Accessibility documentation
  - Flash 8 Best Practices:Guidelines for Accessibility in Flash (.html, 4 pages, Overview)
  - Best Practices for Accessible Flash Design (Aug 2005, .pdf, 32 pages, Detailed)
- Detailed analysis from a developer of his experience with the accessibility features of Flash(from Aug 15, 2007).

Abobe Air (Desktop HTML-Javascript and/or Flash)

I'm assuming that all the accessibility issues with regular Flash are true in AIR.