[TYPO3-dev] Filemount / Filelink-Concept

[Daniel Brün]

Hi list!

Every now and then a client asks for secure downloads or downloads from 
some not-www-accessible directory. Basically this means storing the 
files in some directory that the webserver will never deliver to the world.
There are already two extensions that deal with this issue 
(rlmp_securedownload and nf_downloads), but both of them are poorly 
integrated with TYPO3 and not very intuitive to use (no point-and-klick).

That's why I could imagine the following:

When setting up a filemount I can define several additional options, 
such as "Directory not www-accessible" or "FE-Groups".
Whenever an author creates a file-link in the RTE and links to a 
protected file, the link automagically points to a download.php-file 
which takes care of reading the file from the FS and delivering it. The 
download-Script should also check for the required permissions. All 
parameters (filename, filemount-id) should be encrypted using the 
standard encryption string and passed to the script as simple 
GET-Parameters.

This would also make a lot of sense _without_ setting FE-Groups at all, 
because this way one could deliver files from locations that are not 
accessible via www (in some cases, eg. in Windows, symbolic links can 
not be used!).

In order to achieve this functionality, some code would have to be extended:
1. Extend filemount-table
2. Extend link-dialogs (RTE, htmlarea...)
3. Extend rendering (typoscript-FE)

All in all this sounds like heavy XCLASSING, which is no option for me 
and leads to the conclusion that this would be a great feature for the core!

What do you think?

Cheers,
Dan