I can't believe how long Fileman has been around and how many bugs it still has! When I edit a file, sometimes the new version shows up within two minutes but with a couple of files, changes haven't shown up for 15 minutes (and counting)! There is an extra slash inserted before the file name sometimes, and sometimes a single slash AND double slash version are created at the same time and one you see when clicking on the file name is an the old version which may not be editable! I spent 6 hours transferring files yesterday for nothing! Now I have to find a new web host, one with a file manager (not Alabanza which has it's own problems), and move my files again! This time I'll use FTP, or whatever will let me move a folder at a time, even if I have to pay someone to do it for me! Do the world a favor programmers/scriptwriters... Shape up or find another job, and if you work for a company that doesn't give you enough time to do good work, quit! I'd rather have less of a selection of software and pay for it than waste this kind of time.

What bugs?...Are you using the latest version?

I hate to be a party pooper but this doesn't sound like a Fileman problem at all. In defence of Fileman, this is the first occurance of such a problem I've seen reported here and so it isn't some sort of bug. Secondly fileman would either edit the file or not...it wouldn't hang inbetween and take 15 minutes to update your file. If it is showing as being updated then it is and either your browser is showing a cached page or your server is playing games.

As for programmers shaping up bla bla....do you not think that is a hasty comment seeing as you have no proof that fileman is the cause of your problems.

Please don't post duplicate threads either. You only need one to get your point across.

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/

I'm not using the new Beta version. I'm using the 1.01, which I assumed would be more bug-free than the new one. I was willing to deal with fewer features. Version 1.01 is also what my web host installed for me without my specifying a version.

My latest problem is my cgi Formmail program not working. I also can't see the files created with Fileman by using Web-ftp, although maybe that's a problem with Web-ftp. I've seen simmilar problems to that one in the posts though. As for the extra slashes before file names, after a while, I think you can find same file with or without adding the extra slash so people may not find it a big enough problem to complain about, but if you look at the address in the address bar when displaying some pages created with Fileman, I'd be suprised if you didn't see an extra slash too. I'm not sure about the cause of the delays, but I'm betting that my Formmail script problem is Fileman's fault. I was thinking that my Formmail script problem may be due to the temporary dot in my web address, but my first choice for blame is Fileman, and second is my "server playing games". If I discover the delay and script problem isn't Fileman's fault, I'll apologize to him.

Guilty until proven innocent huh?

Let's hope you don't get jury duty

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/

Almost every problem you mentioned can be solved by proper server configuration, and is not caused by fileman.

Blame formmail problems on fileman? I'm probably missing the connection there.

So you don't like the free product? The solution is simple. Go pay for something you do like! :-)

As the Readme file says, Fileman will run as the web server, and there are lots of ways a server can mess things up. Every file created with/transfered to Formmail is exposed to Formmail's workings, whatever they are, and I wouldn't rule out my Formmail problem being Fileman's fault. My Formmail script worked fine on Hypermart, but customer service of my new host just told me that there were extranious control characters after every line. He removed them and said the script should work now. It still doesn't.

Yes runs as the web server not AS a server. There is a big difference.

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/

Those "extraneous characters" are newlines and if you do a simple search in these forums, the solution is posted several times.

Most file managers will not handle cgi scripts in editing by default, you must change them to handle the "extraneous characters" yourself.

You said things worked at hypermart, so why leave it? Sounds like your problem has to do with changing hosts and the new hosts sever configurations being different from your previous host. Once again, this is not fileman's fault.

I'm a complete newbie to running perl scripts but I've had no trouble at all with Fileman, especially none of the problems being described in your posts. I do customer support for a web hosting company and user error is still the most common cause of accidental problems. I suggest you use a little more patience and investigate the problems you're claiming to have before you make accusations about bugs. As I said above, I'm having no problems with Fileman, but I took my time to configure and install it properly. Additionally, I installed it for someone who knows little about web programming and web servers, she has no problem with Fileman.

Lloyd

You might do well to download the new fileman. Even though it is listed as a beta version, having used both it and version 1 extensively, I can tell you that I have generally found version 2 to be more stable than version 1 (although both do have the occassional bug). Also, it is far more user friendly and far easier to use.


Those "extraneous control characters" are actually control-M characters. On a windows OS, new lines are delimited by two characters - control-M, followed by control-J.

This would seem to indicate that you moved from an NT server to a linux server. Excellent! If only more people would do so...

However, perl on unix systems recognizes the ^M (often called \r) as whitespace and leaves it alone. The only problem that can occur with ^M's is when the #!/path/to/perl line has a ^M at the end - in this case the OS will try to run: "/path/to/perl^M", which of course doesn't exist. A solution is to either put a space at the end of the line (#!/path/to/perl ^M works just fine) or to strip ^M's, as your host has done.

Having moved from NT to Linux, your formmail configuration will have to change. I don't remember exactly how the configuration of formmail works, but if it tries to use sendmail you need to change the path (probably to /usr/lib/sendmail or /usr/sbin/sendmail). Otherwise if it uses SMTP, you need to find out what SMTP server to use.

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Jason Rhinelander
Gossamer Threads
jason@gossamer-threads.com