Web-Based File Manager Is Here!

Hi folks...just got some good news from the product folks.

In a comment to my entry last week on hit counters, Ryanagi asked why the AOL UK folks had a Web-based File Manager, and we didn't.

Well, we do now: The Web-based File Manager is finally here in the US! http://hometown.aol.com/_fm

What
this means is that you can manipulate your files from any Web browser,
without having to use Keyword: FTP (or running a standalone FTP client
over your AOL connection). It's an easier way to get big, frameless photos into your Journals.

This is especially good news for our AIM Bloggers, since they also had 100 MB of Web space, but had no way to get to it...until now.

What this also means is that you now have the power to fiddle with your hit counters,
to restore "lost" hits (and, if you want to make yourself feel more
important by pumping up your hit count, well, you can do that too if
you really want to.) Read on.

First off, a few caveats:

* Consider this a public test.
We will be telling more people about File Manager, and adding it to the
navigation later, but first the tech folks want to observe how it
performs in the wild. [Update: 9/27: We should be good to go now; go wild.]

* Web-based File Manager does not
completely replace FTP; there are a few restrictions on the size of the
files you can upload -- each individual file you upload can't be bigger
than 500K, and your total for each upload (you can upload 4 files at a
time) can't be more than 1 megabyte.

* I've been getting some "Sorry, We Can't Find That Page" errors; hitting reload eventually does the trick. [Update: 9/27: We seem to be much better now.]

Okay, now here's how it works:

1. From any Web browser, go to http://hometown.aol.com/_fm; if you're not already signed in, you'll be asked to sign in with your screen name and password.

2. When you're signed in, you'll see the File Manager Main Screen:



3. Youcan either Browse My Files (work with your existing files) or Add New Files. I'm going to start out with Browse My Files:



This will start you out at the top level of your FTP storage space -- all the Web files you have stored under the screen name you're currently signed in with.

You'll notice in the upper right corner that it will tell how much storage space you're using (and how much you have left).

Looking
lower, you'll see files (such as your odometer files), and if you have
folders or subdirectories set up, you'll see those, too -- to look
inside a folder, click on the folder's name (for example, I have an images folder).

To view a file, you can click on its file name; to download a file you can also right-click the file name with your mouse and choose "Save As" to save it to your computer.

On the right, you can also see links to Add files to this folder, and also to Create a new folder. (Creating subfolders makes it easier to find files if you have a lot of them.)

4. Now, to edit, rename, delete or otherwise work with a particular file, click the blue Change button to the right of the file name.

5. The button will change into an arrow, telling you that you're working with this file. Also, the options on the right side will change, letting you View, Delete, Move, Rename or Copy that file:



Selecting
Move, Rename or Copy will ask you for more information (what folder to
move it to or what new name to call it); picking Delete will ask you to
confirm that you really want to delete that file.

6. If you want to upload a file, you can click Add More Files, which will give you a screen like this:



Note that where it says "Add Files to Folder"
will show the folder you're going to put the files; if you've got
another specific subfolder you want to put it in, you'll have to back
up a step, find or create that subfolder, and choose Add a File from
inside that subfolder.

(In fact, I used File Manager to upload
these screen shots, and I forgot to move to the images folder before I
uploaded them, so they went up to the top level folder. 
Fortunately, it was easy to move the files, as described above.)

7. You can select up to 4 files to upload at a time. No file can be larger than 500K, and the max total filesize for all 4 files has to be under 1 megabyte (as
mentioned, if you need to upload files bigger than that, you'll have to
use Keyword: FTP or a standalone FTP client over your AOL connection)

8. When you're ready to upload everything, just click "OK."

That's pretty much all there is to it. Play around with it and tell us what you think.

Oh,
and once you've uploaded those pretty pictures to your FTP space? To
add them to a blog entry, when you're creating or editing a blog entry,
click the blue Add Pictures from Hometown link, then select the file you want.

This entry is going a little long, so I will tell you how you can futz with your hit counters in the next post. Thanks. -- Joe

[Update: You can now use a standalone FTP client program (as long as it supports SFTP) to upload and manipulate the files in your Web storage space. This gets around file size limits -- see my entry with full instructions on how to do this.]