Download Multiple Files or Folders

1 Requirements

It should be possible to download multiple files and/or folders at once.Possible solution: Klick on "manage" (verwalten) and select the the files and/or folders to download. Then klick "download" (herunterladen) and ILIAS creates a zip-file which is sent to the browser for download (as it works for single folders now).
If someone checks an object other than file or folder and klicks on "download" ILIAS remindes him that the download of the certain object isn't possible.

2 Status

• Scheduled for: Release 4.4
• Funding: Funded by Switch AAA Project "Dateihandling in ILIAS" / PH Zürich
• Development: Feature is to be developed by PH Zürich

3 Additional Information

• If you want to know more about this feature, its implementation or funding, please contact: Pascal Schmitt, PH Zürich / ilias@phzh.ch

4 Discussion

Project Team, September 2012: Buttons not feasible shoulb be greyed out. E.g. if someone selects a file and a group the "download" button ist not active because it is not possible to download a group.

JF 1 Oct 2012: We discussed the feature today. The "Manage" screen may not be suitable, if the feature should be available for learners. Another option could be to offer an action "Download Files" in the top right action menu. This would open a list with checkboxes for all file objects of the container.

Project Team, Oktober 2012: We will implement the solution using the action menu on the page.

Alex, 31 Jan 2013: We should tackle the issues of the generation of large zip files here, see bug report #7505. There should be some limitations to the maximum size of files included in a zip generation.

Pascal, 4 February 2013: We can not fix bug #7505 within this feature. This problem allready exists and is not directly connected to this feature. There are some solutions around like giving the zip process less priority (nice), don't use compression and avoid double click on the "download as zip" in the action menu in the interface.

JF 5 Feb 2013: Alex did not mean that necessarily you fix the problem of the existing feature. However we need to tackle for both features the issue of too large zip files being created due to the possiblity of big hierarchical folder/file structures under a folder. ILIAS should first examine the structure and calculate the overall size of the files that should be compressed. It must be possible to limit this size in the ILIAS administration and to abort the process with a failure message like "The overall size of the selected files (xxGB) is too big. Please select less files."
 
We schedule the feature (action drop down alternative) for 4.4.

5 Implementation

This feature can be enabled (it's disabled by default) in the administration located under "Administration > Files and Folders" in the "Downloading Settings" tab:

After the feature is enabled users may select multiple files and folders by clicking on "Actions > Dowload Multiple Objects":

The user can then select the items he wants to download by selecting them. Items that cannot be downloaded do not offer a checkbox.

Additionally to the "Download Multiple Objects" action a download button is provided in the administration toolbar when managing items: