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Web-Based FileBrowser... for 68k Macs.

Floofies

Maker of Logos
What is one of the most important things to you, when setting up an old Pre-OSX Mac? Getting the system running at it's best, getting it on the internet, and upgrading it to hell and back!? Maybe! I can say for sure that most people are probably going to include filesharing in that list, and know that doing so isn't exactly easy 100% of the time. For those of us with AppleShare-native operating systems, it might be a walk in the park, but what about everyone else? We can use a multitude of specific software to facilitate filesharing if we lack the aforementioned... with some caveats. Things can and usually do go wrong in several ways, and eventually you might be left asking: "Why isn't there a more simple solution?". That is why I've made this post... and this open-source software: https://github.com/Floofies/plopbox-core

Upon first glance, you can likely tell it requires HTTP/PHP/SQL, so it's not a "Mac App". Plainly explained, it's a simple/lightweight little package of PHP files that generate a file index, kind of like Apache's built-in autoindex module (which I'm sure everyone has seen). Apache's autoindex module is actually pretty nice for filesharing, and I used it to share files one-way to a Quadra 630 running System 7.6.1. When I first set up my Q630, I tackled the problem of filesharing head-on, eventually going as far as running a Windows Server 2000 VM. Everything I tried was a bit chunky, and usually never a full solution. I turned back to Apache, and saw how simple it was, how easy to set up it was; and it got me thinking! Why not design my own autoindex?

As I cobbled my project together, it started to look more like a modern web-app, and definitely didn't display correctly on a 68k Mac. Turns out my designer instincts took over at some point, and made quite the CSS problem on old browsers. That's when the idea of "simple mode" occurred to me. Instead of designing a potentially ugly filebrowser just for old computers, I wanted to make something flexible, something you could use for modern computers as well. In my software, you can toggle between "Normal Mode (CSS + JS on)" and "Simple Mode (CSS + JS off)", making it quite useful on old browsers. The feature can be toggled via a self-propagating URI argument, so all you need to do is bookmark the site with the argument inside the URI. Simple mode is only the beginning, however, as I plan on adding several other features to make it truly useful on 68k Macs. That's where this thread comes into play.

I need suggestions here, and a little more than that, I also need some truly bright thinkers. My ideas are simply a bit too ambitious: to create a bidirectional file sharing solution that also works on old browsers.

 

Bunsen

Admin-Witchfinder-General
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but what does this do (or do better) for oldMacs that an AppleShare file server doesn't?

 

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
Uploads aren't too hard. Old browsers can do them, but on the Mac, you need to pickle the resource fork somehow before hand. (MacBinary/BinHex to the rescue.)

PHP makes me :( though.

 

kingchops

Well-known member
I use FTP to transfer files to/from my old Macs.  My everyday computer is a Windows 10 machine, I use the built in ftp server under IIS.  I then run Fetch FTP on the Mac side.  Fetch is great for preserving resource fork during transfer.  For uploads it will automatically archive files with Macbinay II and for downloads it will detect the file type from the extension and open in the related application.

 
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Floofies

Maker of Logos
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but what does this do (or do better) for oldMacs that an AppleShare file server doesn't?
I do not own a Mac capable of filesharing to my older Mac. Well, that's inaccurate, I have a MDD G4... but then I don't have anything capable of filesharing to that! So... I tried a few things.

Your question does miss the point. If you have a simple and easy way to run an AppleShare server (that works fully), then you do not need this software. I'm making this for everyone else, who like me, have had endless issues with alternative methods.

Uploads aren't too hard. Old browsers can do them, but on the Mac, you need to pickle the resource fork somehow before hand. (MacBinary/BinHex to the rescue.)

PHP makes me :( though.
 I thought so myself, hence the idea! The problems arise when you need to make the connection very secure, and keep the server out of harm's way. When you give a user upload capabilities, you are opening the server up to some very nasty things. Add the fact that all old Macs are an attack vector to modern computers, due to various factors, and it's a bit scary! I'm not quite a security expert, and only just recently researched the specifics on CSRF/XSS.

Also, this is open source, so you are free to rewrite my work in your own preferred language. (If I had a nickel every time someone said they didn't like PHP...)

I use FTP to transfer files to/from my old Macs.  My everyday computer is a Windows 10 machine, I use the built in ftp server under IIS.  I then run Fetch FTP on the Mac side.  Fetch is great for preserving resource fork during transfer.  For uploads it will automatically archive files with Macbinay II and for downloads it will detect the file type from the extension and open in the related application.
I tried the exact same thing (on Win7) but found the security to be horrifyingly lacking, due to my former points. This will be a new design, which takes into account these security issues and deals with them.

 

olePigeon

Well-known member
You could use NiftyTelnet 1.1 SSH r3.  Lets you do SSH, which is relatively secure.  If you wanted something more user friendly, you could contact the author, Jonas Walldén, and see about using the source code to create a simpler SFTP client similar to Fetch.

 

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
Except that's SSHv1, which is being killed. MacSSH will get you SSHv2 though, albeit without a lot of modern Kex/Ciphers.

 

galgot

Well-known member
I use this kind of setting , a local web server with php autoindex and a small php script on a page to upload things, but use it mainly for quick access to some files from os 8 or 9. I've found a local gopher server ( Floodgap's Bucktooth ) is much more light and usable on older machines running syst 6 or 7, well oldest i have and run are Classic or PB180. With these I use Maclynx to browse the gopher server .

Problem of course is upload... Can't be done with gopher. So it's just one way :-/

 

Floofies

Maker of Logos
AH, so you know how simple and lightweight it is! My goal is to create something similar to OwnCloud, except with older browser support, and smaller codebase. I think the project should be as simple as possible, while still being useful to people who will never own an older computer.

 
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galgot

Well-known member
Yes, it's a good idea. But I'm afraid if you do it with PHP, it's going to be difficult to make it work well on older Macs, I mean the ones that can only use Macweb, Mosaic . The older machine with which I can browse that auto index PHP local web server of mine is a Duo270, using iCab, and it's really slow. So even on that one I prefer to connect via the gopher, which is faster.

I wonder if it would be possible to do an upload script to a gopher server ... way above my knowledge anyway.

Or do you plan to make your own client to connect to that file browser ?

 

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
PHP won't have anything to do with how accessible it is to older browsers, its what it shunts to the client. Autoindex in a web server is handled on the server end, and likely outputs simple HTML and is written in native code.

Gopher is read-only. If your system is too slow to handle a browser, use FTP/NFS/AFP.

 

Floofies

Maker of Logos
PHP won't have anything to do with how accessible it is to older browsers, its what it shunts to the client. Autoindex in a web server is handled on the server end, and likely outputs simple HTML and is written in native code.
That's right! For the "Simple Mode" feature I'm using basic HTML 1.0 elements without a Cascading Style Sheet, like they did in the 90's! I'll find a few neat ways to make it look "good" though.

 

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
If you want to use CSS, load it externally. If browsers don't know what to do with it, they'll just ignore it. Same story for JS.

This is a case of graceful degradation to the extreme.

 

Floofies

Maker of Logos
The modern portion (Standard Mode) of the project will not function correctly without CSS/JS. There are dialog boxes, full-page elements triggered by JS, and all sorts of (impending) neat jQuery.

Early in my project, I tried to load the "Standard Mode" HTML on a Q630. It looked like complete ass and was not usable at all. Huge swaths of otherwise hidden elements painfully stuck out, and made the page horrendously chaotic. (Think: What would DropBox look like if you could even get it to load on a 68k machine?). My solution was to design for the machine's capabilities, so the "Standard Mode" and "Simple Mode" use completely different sets of HTML with totally different structures. In other words, It's 90's design for browsers from the 90's.

I'm getting the vibe that someone doesn't think I've done my research on this matter... Quite the contrary, it's the reason I started this project. If you like loading modern web apps on old computers, and somehow like it's appearance, go for it. I, for one, would like something that displays correctly in both time periods. Thus it is something you can utilize on all networked computers you own, even if they're from 1990.

 
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olePigeon

Well-known member
I've started and abandoned several times a website for 68k software and manuals.  I designed it in HTML3 so it'd load properly in Netscape 3 or newer.

 

Floofies

Maker of Logos
I'd love to take a look, if you don't mind. For a long time I've considered hosting something like that.

 
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olePigeon

Well-known member
There's really nothing to look at.  I mean, you can look at the pretty pictures, but it's just basic HTML with frames.  I wanted to do all the heavy lifting on the server using CGI or PHP or something to generate the HTML.  So I had started to make templates, but then when it got the CGI stuff, I hit a roadblock.  I wanted to use it to catalog my own personal collection, and since it's all abandonware, I was going to share it with anyone who asked.  I know there're lots of abandonware websites already, but I wanted to make one that's Netscape 3 compatible (also works in Netscape 2), no larger than 640 pixels wide (so you can still view it on a Compact with minimal amount of scrolling), and in B&W (it's black & beige on a color computer.)  That way anyone with an internet connection on their vintage Mac that can run Netscape 2 or newer would be able to browse and download software, games, manuals, and other related items.

bitcider.gif

 
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