Support for Folder Shortcuts inside Real Folder

[neosree]

I will explain this with a simple example:

I have a folder named RootFolder. And it has 3 sub folders: Sub1,Sub2,Sub3.
Now adding RootFolder as a real folder in HFS works very well as intended. All 3 subfolders are browseable via the webinterface and files inside the subfolders are downloadable.

Now I have another folder named RootFolderOrganized.
Inside this folder I have shortcuts to Sub2 and Sub3 in RootFolder.
Now after adding RootFolderOrganized as a real folder in HFS, nothing is displayed in the browser under this folder.

The only way I could get this working in HFS is by creating a Virtual Folder named RootFolderOrganized in HFS and adding Sub2 and Sub3 as real folders to this Virtual Folder.

This is only an example. Think about 1000s of folders, its really difficult to manually add each folder to a virtual folder.

Hope this can be supported in HFS future builds..

[rejetto]

i just tested and confirm what you are saying.
i will look deeper into it when i'm home, but i think it's a bug.

[Mars]

grilled by rejetto HI 

the lnk files cannot establish a real bridge from one directory to another and it's fine for safety reasons.


the lnk files do not establish a bridge from one directory to another and it's fine for safety reasons.

Such a combination is possible with  LINUX and is called a symbolic link,

under windows there is a solution to associate directories with another as symbolic link, which also works using HFS but resolving URL paths translated into windows path is not working properly beyond the "link"

 I have begun a feasibility study but I lack perspective regarding the handling of data by hfs internally


maybe one day in the future, this possibility will result, but now, say it is not possible in the present state of things because the creation of such links is difficult to manage under windows

[neosree]

@rejetto: Thanks a lot for looking into this
@Mars: When we open a folder shortcut in windows it will automatically open the associated real location of the folder and display its contents.
Same can be done by HFS, I hope. Just have to do an extra step - if its a shortcut, then instead of displaying the shortcut itself which would break the http URL path, display its real folder instead. This means when clicking the shortcut in web-browser, we are actually clicking the real folder, hence no issues with http URL path being broken. that would be feasible right?

[LeoNeeson]

the lnk files cannot establish a real bridge from one directory to another and it's fine for safety reasons.

Totally true. It's unsafe to allow .lnk files to work as direct access. Imagine someone may upload a .lnk file with a link to an unshared folder (and he may gain access). If this is implemented, it should be forbidden to upload or rename files as ".lnk", to not introduce a security risk.

[rejetto]

i was wrong, it's not a bug.
It's a missing feature. I knew about it, but i forgot. Handling this case is not as easy as it seems, requires some extra effort, not only programming but by the computer, much more disk activity. I won't bore you with details.
I don't exclude to support this in the future, but as an option, as it may slow down the server a bit.
Anyway, at the moment you can already get the same result by using "junctions" instead of shorcuts. They are similar, but most file managers don't offert this feature. When i needed to make one i just did it using "junction.exe" (by Microsoft) at command line, so i cannot just advice one now.

[bmartino1]

so symbolic links it is then :p

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

[rejetto]

This is only an example. Think about 1000s of folders, its really difficult to manually add each folder to a virtual folder.

just an additional note: if the root folders are few, you may already know that you can add all of the shortcuts folders with a single action: you select them all, drag&drop them, then select "real folder" only once.
That may not be a viable solution for you, but just to be sure you know it.

[neosree]

just an additional note: if the root folders are few, you may already know that you can add all of the shortcuts folders with a single action: you select them all, drag&drop them, then select "real folder" only once.
That may not be a viable solution for you, but just to be sure you know it.

Yeah, aware of this but it was not viable in my case. I already had the shortcuts done.
By the way, thanks a lot for the suggestion to use junctions instead, they works very well and its very easy for me to convert my shortcuts to junctions using my favorite file manager xyplorer. 

[LeoNeeson]

XYplorer is great. I guess you are using Windows Vista or newer, but if some other user here wants to make 'junction' in XP, you can find a tutorial, here and more info here... There is even a freeware to do this very easy, called "Link Shell Extension (LSE)" (it supports almost all the NT family: NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP64, and Windows7/8/10)