Thread

Hello,

I have a Safecracker form set up and running and I’d like to change the way that file uploads work so that they are submitted and saved to the server when a user selects them via ajax (so that I can set a preview thumbnail and show a progress bar), rather than sending all the files at once to the server when the form submits and losing the UX features.

I have the ajax functionality working, saving the file to the correct server directory, and I have it returning the filename and extension. I use these to fill a hidden custom field value for example

<input type="hidden" name="custom_image_field" value="filename.jpg">

‘custom_image_field’ is set up as a Safecracker File field.

When I submit the Safecracker form I notice that the ‘custom_image_field’ is set in the $_POST array and that Safecracker correctly processes the right field_id_X and assigns the filename to that too.

However having traced through the Safecracker library I noticed that after the form validation is run the field_id_X key in $_POST is returned empty, and so no filename is saved to the entry record, and no record is saved under the exp_files table either.

My presumption is that because no $_FILES array is sent to the server that any file fields are just reset to empty following the form validation.

Question 1: Is there a way around this?

Next Steps:
Knowing that the file exists on the server following the ajax upload, I looked at setting the ‘custom_image_field_hidden’ input field value to the returned filename. Similar to how Safecracker would output the field on an edit entry page. Like this.

<input type="hidden" name="custom_image_field" value="NULL">
<input type="hidden" name="custom_image_field_hidden" value="filename.jpg">

When submitting the form, this successfully writes the filename (and file directory prefix - { filedir_1 }) to the entry record.

This does unearth another problem however in that no record is set in the exp_files table and so the exp:channel:entries loop isn’t able to locate the image data.

Question 2: Is it possible to synchronize a file directory via an API call?

Question 5: Would any of these approaches fix the problem and allow the channel entries loop to output the ‘custom_image_field’ data?

We’re running EE 2.6.1

Thank you for your time and any suggestions.
Bh