User guide

Contents of this page

Introduction

... to the web interface.

Prerequisites

... or the author says requirements:
Secure connection (HTTPS)
is required to secure your data (files, account password) and to enable cookies ...
Cookies
are required for settings (language selection, ...), bookmarks, clipboard (copy, cut, paste), folder history,...
JavaScript
enables all features and without JavaScript nothing works in the web interface.
Of course, the latest browser version is required, so that everything works well. Web interface parts The web interface has 3 main parts:
  • head area at the top with some useful information,
  • application bar at the left side,
  • content area with a toolbar, the file and folder list, and an optional status bar.

Head area

  • The head area shows in most cases your account name and at the right date and time information.
  • There is also a language switch, but not all dialogs are translated to the offered languages.
  • The header can be hidden to save space for the folder list.

Applications

  • The available applications depend on your local installation and can change after a file or folder selection.
  • To save space you can collapse the application bar to an icon-only view or to hide it.
  • And a settings button to open a settings dialog for some customizations is also available on the applications or side bar.

Toolbar

  • The toolbar changes it's content depending on the current file or folder selection.
  • At the left side of the toolbar the quick navigation helps you to navigation back to upper folders.
  • Right of the quick navigation are buttons to create files and folders, uploading files and folders, and so on.
  • If no file or folder is selected, you'll find a bookmarks menu
    and a autorefresh menu
    .
  • The filter box at the right site of the toolbar allows you to hide all files and folders in the list that do not match your input. A click on the cross button (appears if a filter input exists) behind the input field removes the filter. Some characters in this filter box have a special meaning (.*+?^$()[]{}\), because this box supports regular expressions6.

File and folder list

  • You can customize the file and folder list and you can change the view from a table with details
    to a big icon list
    , or small icon list
    . A folder tree
    with a context menu is also available.
  • The tooltip of the File/Folder column shows statistics with a file and folder count.
  • The tooltip of the Size column shows a summary of used file space of the current folder (excluding folders).
  • All size values have a tooltip with other size units like B (bytes), KB (kilo bytes=B×1024), MB (mega bytes=B×10242), GB (giga bytes: B×10243), TB (tera bytes=B×10244), PB (peta bytes=B×10245).

Buttons and icons

Not every button has a label and therefore there are tooltips. Place the mouse cursor over it or put the keyboard focus on it and wait a couple of seconds to get a tooltip. Some tooltips have a help button to get a context help.

Dialogs and messages

  • All "dangerous" actions like delete ask for confirmation with a dialog. Some dialogs can be supressed for future actions by deselecting "🗹 Always ask for confirmation.". To get the confirmation dialog back, use the
    Settings dialog (tab "Dialogs") in the applications bar.
  • After a file or folder action (upload, delete, rename, and so on) you will get a message with information of success or failure. This information will be displayed in the top center of the screen (over head and toolbar). After some seconds, this message box disappears. You can also click with the mouse on the message box to hide it.

Drag and drop support (Drag&Drop, or D&D)

Drag and drop makes it easier
  • to upload files and folders selected from your favorite file manager (Windows Explorer, Mac Finder, Xfe, Nautilus, ...),
  • to move or copy (hold ⇧ Shift while dragging) your files and folders from current to a subfolder, to the upper folder, or any folder in the folder tree
    ,
  • or to customize the file and folder list.

Context menu

The file and folder list has a context menu (right mouse click on a file or folder row) with some standard file actions and a lot of additional features (depending on your local installation). If you have nothing selected in the file list, the right clicked file or folder will be taken for the context action. The table header has it's own context menu to change sort order or to show or hide table columns. The folder tree
has also a context menu with some basic folder operations. And if you need the web browser context menu instead of the file and folder list context menu you have to use the right double click
not of all web browsers supported
.

Keyboard support

  • Tabbing with (⇧ Shift+) ↹ Tab key is implemented and can be used to reach all important things like buttons, actions, etc.
  • There are default shortcuts1 to reach file actions and some web interface elements like file and folder list, toolbar, and application bar.
  • How to use shortcuts or which modifiers are needed depend on your web browser2 and operating system, e.g.:
    • Mozilla Firefox: on Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux: Alt+⇧ Shift, on Mac: Ctrl+⌥ Opt
    • Google Chrome: on Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux: Alt and sometimes ⇧ Shift too, on Mac: Ctrl+⌥ Opt
  • To get a full list of available shortcuts use shortcut 0.
  • In the file list you can use
    • the cursor keys , , ▲ Page up, ▼ Page down, ⇤ Home, and ⇥ End for navigation too,
    • the   Space   key to select files,
    • the ↵ Enter key to change the folder or download a file,
    • or the Del key to delete files and folders.

Basic tasks

.. with files and folders:
Download a single file
  • single click on the filename,
  • double click on the matching file list row,
  • click on the file actions button
    and select "Download",
  • or open the context menu with a single right click on the matching file list row and select "Download"
Upload a file
  • click on the new menu button
    , select
    and a file dialog opens,
  • or open your favorite file manager and use drag & drop to put your files and folders into the file and folder list
Change to another folder
  • click on the folder name,
  • double click on the matching folder row,
  • use the quick navigation in the toolbar,
  • or use web browser history back or forward
Delete a single file or folder
click on the file actions button
and select "Delete"
(De)select file(s) or folder(s) for further actions
  • single left click in the row
    don't click on the filename, action button, or icon
    ,
  • after one file or folder was (de)selected you can combine the single left click with ⇧ Shift to (de)select all files and folders between the first and second selected file or folder
Delete a list of files or folders
  1. select a list of files and folders
  2. and use one of the following options:
    • toolbar button
      ,
    • context menu (right click to row) and click on "Delete"

Customization

... of the web interface.

Web interface

Take a look at the
Settings dialog to change the layout and behavior of the web interface.
Show/Hide application bar or header
click on the toggle buttons on the bottom left of the application bar or the bottom right of the head area to (un)collapse or hide one or both

File list

Column order
single left click on column header and hold mouse key down (Drag & Drop)
Column width
  • double left click on table header changes the width in two steps: 1. minimum size, 2. default size,
  • or a single left click on left or right border on column header and hold mouse key down (mouse cursors should changed to a resize cursor before left click)
File and folder list sort order
  • single left click on table header,
  • or use the list options dialog: click on list options icon
    at the right of the table header
Show or hide columns
click on list options icon
at the right of the table header to open the list options dialog

Troubleshooting Guide

Cut&Paste or Copy&Paste don't work as expected.

Please allow your web browser to store cookies. And if you allow it and it doesn't work you should check the URL because all cookies have a secure flag and without SSL (HTTPS) cookies don't work.

My file list is empty.

Please check your filter form (at the right side of the toolbar) and clean the input field or reload the complete page (F5). If it doesn't help, ask your local administrator to look on the server for troubleshooting.

I'm missing my (sub)folders after a folder upload. Or: The folder upload doesn't work.

There are currently problems with old web browser versions and Firefox and should be solved in later versions of Firefox (≥50.1.0). Please check your browser version and upgrade if necessary. There are some alternative solutions for folder uploads yet:
  • use Drag&Drop feature (see Basic tasks),
  • use Google Chrome,
  • or use WebDAV.

I cannot find a logout button, why? Or: The logout button doesn't work properly.

This web application uses a special, standardized authentication mechanism (Basic Access Authentication5). There is no proper way to logout a user without quitting the web browser (the only save way). But there is a trick, where a special logout script sends a wrong password response (status 401) to the web browser. Sometimes a web browser believes this and forgets the correct password, sometimes not.

References and external links

  1. SAK2014: Standard Access Keys 2014
  2. Wikipedia.org: Access key
  3. GNU General Public License
  4. WebDAV CGI: Home page
  5. RFC2617: HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication
  6. Wikipedia.org: Regular expression

Terms and conditions

This software and documentation is published under the terms of GPLv33:
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
			

Privacy Policy

This application (WebDAV CGI4) doesn't send any data to nor collect any data on a public web site.

WebDAV CGI uses a database for WebDAV properties and some user preferences including your user account name (no password). Ask your local administrator who has access to this database and what he is doing with this data.

The web interface of WebDAV CGI uses cookies to save preferences like web interface customizations in your web browser, and to enable some features like a clipboard (copy, cut, paste) and a folder history. An extension allows you to save your preferences into the database, but it's an option and disabled by default (opt-in).