Website file uploader - no PHP
November 7, 2013 6:22 PM Subscribe
A friend has asked me to fix a broken file uploading function on her website. The website is coded entirely in HTML, and the server it runs on does not support PHP scripts.
I was hoping to find something easy to just drop into the site, but I'm running into some walls. She doesn't really want to pay for something (or at least, she wants to pay very little), and pretty much all of the current tools seem to use PHP.
I would actually really like to find some mythical thing that just takes the files the clients upload and email them to my friend without messing with server stuff, but I don't think this exists.
Am I missing something obvious in my search?
I was hoping to find something easy to just drop into the site, but I'm running into some walls. She doesn't really want to pay for something (or at least, she wants to pay very little), and pretty much all of the current tools seem to use PHP.
I would actually really like to find some mythical thing that just takes the files the clients upload and email them to my friend without messing with server stuff, but I don't think this exists.
Am I missing something obvious in my search?
you can definitely make an HTML form target an email address , I have never tried putting an <input type="file"> in a form of that kind. Worth trying.
Failing that, you're probably going to need SOME kind of scripting; php is very common but there are other sorts. If your friends' current hosting doesn't support php, she'll need to find hosting that does.
posted by contrarian at 7:15 PM on November 7, 2013
Failing that, you're probably going to need SOME kind of scripting; php is very common but there are other sorts. If your friends' current hosting doesn't support php, she'll need to find hosting that does.
posted by contrarian at 7:15 PM on November 7, 2013
Put plainly, there is no such thing as a (functional) purely HTML file uploader. There has to be something on the other side of the upload that handles it. Often times, that is PHP, but it need not be that specifically.
Probably best to elaborate on what the actual functionality is that you're looking for (what are these files, what is done with them once they're uploaded?) and what the capabilities of the server actually are so folks can direct you to a solution that will actually be helpful.
posted by toomuchpete at 7:36 PM on November 7, 2013
Probably best to elaborate on what the actual functionality is that you're looking for (what are these files, what is done with them once they're uploaded?) and what the capabilities of the server actually are so folks can direct you to a solution that will actually be helpful.
posted by toomuchpete at 7:36 PM on November 7, 2013
I can think of a few hacky solutions, but none are anywhere near safe, because at some point you're gonna have credentials or auth keys for the service you're sticking files on, and you want to keep those safely on the server.
Maybe see if she'll go for a paid Box account? They're pretty cheap and the paid tiers have a widget for this kind of thing.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:48 PM on November 7, 2013
Maybe see if she'll go for a paid Box account? They're pretty cheap and the paid tiers have a widget for this kind of thing.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:48 PM on November 7, 2013
Best answer: Or you could roll your own widget using a free tier Heroku app (if this part of her site doesn't get enough traffic to exceed the free tier limit) handing off files to an FTP server or to a Google Drive/Dropbox account via their APIs, then just stick that in an iframe on her site.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:59 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by jason_steakums at 7:59 PM on November 7, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'm not willing to spend too much time on this. I'm going to with something with an integration with dropbox. Thanks for the idea, jason_steakums.
posted by robot-hugs at 9:54 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by robot-hugs at 9:54 PM on November 7, 2013
WuFoo lets you embed a form with file uploading, and if it's 1 form with up to 100 submissions per month, it's free.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:03 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by DarlingBri at 10:03 PM on November 7, 2013
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'm not willing to spend too much time on this. I'm going to with something with an integration with dropbox. Thanks for the idea, jason_steakums.
No problem! Just make sure you put in some kind of gate to verify that there's a human doing the uploading, she could have a bad time if someone points a bot at the form.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:09 PM on November 7, 2013
No problem! Just make sure you put in some kind of gate to verify that there's a human doing the uploading, she could have a bad time if someone points a bot at the form.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:09 PM on November 7, 2013
« Older But I don't like you - must I toast to you? | My nephew would like to not freeze this winter... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by foxfirefey at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2013