Yeah, so lately, in what little free time I have, I've been working around my Random Avatar Script to improve it and make it easier for common tech-illiterate people to be able to install it and set it up and everything. So far, stuff has been moving smoothly (the install wizard is almost done, which is one less royal pain in the ass for me), except for one little thing that kinda angers me. (Prepare to read a bit of a rant -- gotta vent off somehow.)
Y'see, the horrible little fuckers called <input type="file"> HTML elements are obnoxiously anal when it comes to CSS styling. There's no real way to manipulate their appearance through stylesheets, and to make stuff even more annoying, if you want to upload several images at a time in a single <form> element, the handling done server-side to copy/place the files is, for lack of a better word capable of conveying my feelings, stupid. But whatever, the solution I have now has it solved: several <input> elements named
images[], so PHP can move through them like an array when they arrive to the server. Rough, but it does the job anyway.
Thing is, I DON'T like the solution I have now. Thus, I've been researching the possibility of inserting a multi-uploader Flash-based utility, as I've noticed that these usually have no hitch handling both correct uploads and failed ones. So far, I've only found two truly freeware solutions:
SWFUpload and
In-a-Flash Uploader. Both seem great (In-a-Flash being the easier one to use of the two); however, BOTH of them, when tried locally and on my server, refuse to work, even after relentlessly tweaking the corresponding upload handlers for each tool.
Albeit, among the forums I regularly frequent, this admittedly isn't the one with the biggest population of techies, it doesn't hurt to ask. Ultimately, I'm trying to make this as simple to use for the common Joe as possible, and as much as I'll have to grind my teeth if it comes to that, if ease of use means sticking with the old bitchy <input type="file"> elements, there's nothing I can do against it.
So, do you guys know of any potential solution that could solve my problem? Or if not, can any of you figure out how to get either of the two I mentioned here running? I'll be eternally glad to you if you can point me out in the right direction.
