Dropbox Uploader Zoom

The Problem

I needed to be able to allow people I know to deposit files into my Dropbox account. I looked online and came across the popular solutions which include emailing files to Dropbox using a service like Send to Dropbox. However, these didn't fit my bill. I did try using JotForm but gave up eventually since it didn't look like it was too reliable - even though it seemed to (more or less) meet all my requirements (see below). So, after looking some more, I came upon Amit Banerjee's solution - which in turn uses code written by Jaka Jančar - and liked what he'd done with it. But this still didn't cut it. I wanted the software to

1. Enable multiple files to be submitted to Dropbox
2. Organize files by folder
3. Include an upload progress bar (to indicate what percentage of the files have been uploaded)
4. Notify select people by email when files have been deposited to Dropbox
5. Allow only files with specific extensions to be deposited into Dropbox

So, I decided to come up with my own solution called Dropbox Uploader Zoom and would like to present it here.

 

The Solution

I started off by downloading Amit Banerjee's implementation and changing it to include all the points mentioned above.

I don't necessarily want to bore you with the technical nitty-gritties but I will add that I had some trouble initially hurdling over the problem caused by not implementing a Post/Redirect/GET (PRG) design pattern - which causes a form to be submitted multiple times (in this case, this resulted in the file being submitted multiple times too). This forced me to rethink how I was approaching the problem and I ended up adopting the PRG model to fix the issue. To this end, I borrowed code from the PHP Programming Tutorial website. I also looked hard for a good, free, upload progress bar and decided to settle in on using the Flash version of Uploadify (with some modification to the code written by Ronnie Garcia).

 

The Not So Small Print

Note that someone who knows what they're doing on the web could possibly steal your Dropbox account info if you're using Dropbox Uploader Zoom. So, please bear this in mind (and don't hold me responsible).

I'm not necessarily sure how to make things safer but am open to modify the code to do so if someone would like to suggest a solution and help out with the actual implementation details.

 

The Goodie Bag - Video, Tutorial and Software

So, without further ado, here's a short demo video showcasing Dropbox Uploader Zoom. This is followed by the link to the download of the tutorial / instruction manual and a link to obtain Dropbox Uploader Zoom.

Note: The URLs that follow have all been shortened so I can keep a tab on the downloads. If you'd rather not click on shortened URLs, feel free to unshorten them. 

 

Video

 

 

Tutorial

 

The step-by-step tutorial on how to set up and use Dropbox Uploader Zoom may be downloaded from here.

 

Dropbox Uploader Zoom

 

The latest version of Dropbox Uploader Zoom may be obtained from here.