I am developing an application to let our wedding guests upload their digital images to a central web site (the disposable wedding cameras in a digital era). In an ideal world, I would setup a website which we would hand out to all of our guests. They would go to the site and simply drag and drop their files onto the server much like Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly, shown below.
Kodak Gallery Easy Uploader
Shutterfly Uploader
As you can see, these options present a very intuitive upload experience. Shutterfly in particular is literally as simple as dragging pictures on, and it immediately begins to asynchronously upload the pictures two at a time, placing additional pictures that you drag in on a queue. This is something within the realm of my family understanding.
The clear advantage of these components is that they are simple to use, and work through your web browser, however, they are a pain to install as shown below.
ActiveX installer
Java applets seem to be the most violent to work with, though they offer the best packages such as radlinks or JavaAtWork. However, I have experimented with both of these packages, and the bottom line is that too many antivirus / malware protection programs disable Java / ActiveX, and ultimately I do not want to have to explain how to use the advanced window under internet explorer to fix these.
I believe this leaves me with writing a custom program, which our guests then download and run. Ultimately, this is making an easy to use – pre programmed – FTP window.
I would love it if I could do this through Flash, but I have yet to see a solution to this problem. I realize sites like box.net seem to have solved the problem, but I believe they too use an active X control.
Let me know if you know of a way around this, or are aware of a better solution, otherwise part II of this article will cover the development of this application.
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