A good file manager/document library is one of the biggest weaknesses of the Wordpress core CMS, so thank goodness for WP File Downloads. We previously used WP Filebase Pro and would probably still be using it if support and development hadn’t stopped last year.
While WPFD offers many similar and some better features that we like there are some features that Filebase did very well and might usefully be incorporated into WPFD.
1. Single File Links. Say you want to have a text link within a piece of text in a page/post – eg “Annual Report”. In WPFD you have to go to the file screen and copy the file URL and then go back, edit the page and paste the URL. How much easier would it be if you could simply highlight the text, go to the file in WPFD and click Single file link without inserting a large graphical icon link that takes up unnecessary space ?
2. It is often useful , eg when starting off a website, where you have a group of documents in an existing folder structure, to upload the entire tree, so that folder names become the Category titles. We have some sites with hundreds of PDFs and this feature was really time saving with Filebase. Additionally, Filebase maintained its own folders, separate from the rather bloggy Wordpress system of \uploads\year\month\filename. This was also an advantage for backups etc
3. It is sometimes desirable to have a Latest Publications area – typically a home page Widget area, that displays the most recently uploaded documents (regardless of category) – say 10 files. To achieve this in WPFD you seem to have to create a secondary Category – eg “Homepage-Latest” and include any files using the Multi-Category feature. This requires manual intervention by editors.
Apologies if some of these features already exist and I’ve failed to find them.
While WPFD offers many similar and some better features that we like there are some features that Filebase did very well and might usefully be incorporated into WPFD.
1. Single File Links. Say you want to have a text link within a piece of text in a page/post – eg “Annual Report”. In WPFD you have to go to the file screen and copy the file URL and then go back, edit the page and paste the URL. How much easier would it be if you could simply highlight the text, go to the file in WPFD and click Single file link without inserting a large graphical icon link that takes up unnecessary space ?
2. It is often useful , eg when starting off a website, where you have a group of documents in an existing folder structure, to upload the entire tree, so that folder names become the Category titles. We have some sites with hundreds of PDFs and this feature was really time saving with Filebase. Additionally, Filebase maintained its own folders, separate from the rather bloggy Wordpress system of \uploads\year\month\filename. This was also an advantage for backups etc
3. It is sometimes desirable to have a Latest Publications area – typically a home page Widget area, that displays the most recently uploaded documents (regardless of category) – say 10 files. To achieve this in WPFD you seem to have to create a secondary Category – eg “Homepage-Latest” and include any files using the Multi-Category feature. This requires manual intervention by editors.
Apologies if some of these features already exist and I’ve failed to find them.
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