Hi All,

(cross posted from the FCKEditor forum, with additional edits)
 
Over in the FCKEditor area there's been discussion of possible link corruption issues when inserting a link to a local file in the editor. I've had a full day plus of spelunking though new and undocumented DNN features and I finally some of the issues with the editor figured out.

First, the problems noted in other posts about links getting corrupted and causing errors or "permission" problems have nothing to do with the (excellent) editor Locopon's created for us.  I also found these problems cropping up in the core links module.  Turns out that these problems are part of the current DNN FileManager code and effect the links to files created in the editor and other modules.  The editor calls all the correct DNN core functions for the filemanager and expects those functions to work properly (unfortunatly they do not).

Here's are the problems and the solutions:

1) If there are spaces in the filename you are trying to download, then the LinkClick process bombs with a "Input string was not in a correct format" error.  Removing the spaces from the filename fixes these errors.

2) The filemanager now supports directory level access permissions by role.  Even if you have never used the FileManager to move files to the site (like this old time DNN user), the LinkClick application will still check for them.  By default, only admins have access to the files (and that does not seem to work right either).  To fix this problem, you have to go to the file manager and explicity give "view folder" access to all roles ("All Users" in my case) that need to access the files (note: these permissions are not enherited).

That should fix the issues that have plagued me for the last week or so, hope it works for some of you as well.

---- now it's flame on time ----

First of all, let me say that I think that DNN is one of the best CMS packages ever created.  My hat's off to the core team for their effort and vision.

Now please - take the time to understand that there is a huge user base of people using the fruits of your labor.  We're developing professional solutions based on it.  When you add new functionality, like the folder permissions, document in
when it gets added (or gets imlemented).  Also, make the default mode is the same as the old mode. There's no reason that the default mode needs to be secured, it should default to the open mode and let folks who need it lock down the site.

This change has cost me 2.5 days of work researching the problem and really annoyed my customers.  If there had been a readme file for the release, then I could have saved so much time. And no I'm not going to go scan though the bug list to see what's fixed in this version - that's polling and we all know that polling is poor design - please, be event driven please and post the changes.  I doubt anyone will care if the code gets released 2 days later because you took the time to list all the updates, enhancements and possible gotchas.

Upgrading is always a crap-shoot, it's just would be nice to know where the crap might be shooting from.

Also, just as another gripe - this forum is sooooo slooooow that it makes researching anything like this issue nearly impossible.  DNN is a great general purpose tool and may not be be best solution for such a large forum.  Can you please move to a different forum tool?

---- flame off ---

Once again, thanks to all of you for creating this great product.   I just want to make sure that it's success does not lead to it's demise.


GregC