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The key is the file and folder picker methods (showOpenFilePicker() etc), allowing the web app to interact with existing files and folders on the device. OPFS d

The key is the file and folder picker methods (showOpenFilePicker() etc), allowing the web app to interact with existing files and folders on the device. OPFS does not allow that, as it's internal storage in the browser, like IndexedDB.

cxr 4y ago
Browsers have been able to get access to files on disk for longer now than many Web developers have even had careers—drag and drop was one of the first HTML5 APIs. Same with client-side processing for `<input type="file">` elements. (Directory access through the `webkitdirectory` attribute is another story, but it did eventually gain support from all major browsers—even if it's terribly named and the scary warnings about how it will "probably" go away on MDN haven't been updated.) As for writing, you don't get unlimited unchecked writes the way that Chrome's proposed Filesystem Access API grants you, but you can trigger "checked" writes (that show a file save dialog) using `<a/>` elements with the `download` attribute. This is arguably a better user experience, because it keeps the user in the loop, giving them the opportunity to veto (or rename/relocate) the written file—which will be difficult or impossible to do if the Chrome team's proposed API became standard. Overall, the File System Access proposal is a bad one that gets the developer vs user prioritization wrong (favoring the convenience and satisfaction of the former over preserving control for the latter), and I hope it doesn't become either a de facto or a de jure fixture of the Web platform soon. Here's to hoping for a future post to the Chrome Developers blog announcing that this is yet another experimental API of theirs that they have decided is going to be sunset in some future release.
- nine_k 4y ago
  This is not access to the filesystem. This is access to some controlled contents that happen to come from the filesystem, with interaction explicitly initiated by the user every time. It gives the browser no access to the structure of the filesystem, no way to navigate it, and crucially no way to transparently read or write anything. This is good isolation, I'd prefer it to be this way. OFS also gives equally good isolation, I'm fine with that. Sharing between OFS and the rest of the user's file system should be possible, but only explicitly, a la iOS, Android, and the file upload / download dialog.
  - cxr 4y ago
    Please follow the discussion; we are not referring to the narrow "origin private file system" here. > This is not access to the filesystem. Wrong. I know what "this" is, thanks, and it is access to the filesystem. That's because "this" here—in the subthread you have just posted to—refers to Chrome's experimental implementation of the larger proposal (which is literally called "File System Access API"), not the limited subset described by the submission as having just gotten enabed in Firefox.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      Please take another look at the comment I was replying to. It was about <input type="file"> and <a> with disposition attribute, which are not filesystem access. While Google's new API definitely is.
      - cxr 4y ago
        > Please take another look at the comment I was replying to. It was about <input type="file"> and <a> with disposition attribute It's the `download` attribute, but yeah, I understand the significance of those words. I wrote them. Your replies in this thread, on the other hand, are confusing at best. What are you actually trying to communicate?
worksonmine 4y ago
What's wrong with <input type="file" /> and the $HOME/Downloads folder? Why is arbitrary access to a whole folder needed? Cool, yes. Dangerous? Very.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  That's how you end up with "March 2023 Report (Final) (Edited) (3).docx". Making users repeatedly upload and download the same file to work with it is clunky.
  - throw0101b 4y ago
    > That's how you end up with "March 2023 Report (Final) (Edited) (3).docx". People having been doing that with Word and other local word processors using (SMB) file shares for decades. There's nothing special about web browsers that's causing it.
    - comex 4y ago
      People using Word in this manner typically create a new filename only occasionally, not every single time they save. Browsers, on the other hand, will create a new filename every single time a download is initiated. That makes downloads impractical to use as a web app’s sole persistence mechanism; a few smaller web apps do so anyway but it’s rare. And if they’re not the sole persistence mechanism, if downloads are just an export option separate from a ‘normal’ save, like you see in most web apps, then the 99.9% of users who don’t constantly export all their documents will have to deal with the consequences of the normal persistence mechanism. That is probably cloud storage, with associated centralization, privacy, and cost concerns, though it could also be browser-local temporary storage (cookies / localStorage / IndexedDB / origin-private file system), with reliability and portability concerns.
  - worksonmine 4y ago
    I'd rather have the inconvenience of clicking the file I want to overwrite than accidentally giving a web-app access to something I didn't intend to. Making mistakes should be hard and intentional.

cxr 4y ago

Browsers have been able to get access to files on disk for longer now than many Web developers have even had careers—drag and drop was one of the first HTML5 APIs. Same with client-side processing for `<input type="file">` elements. (Directory access through the `webkitdirectory` attribute is another story, but it did eventually gain support from all major browsers—even if it's terribly named and the scary warnings about how it will "probably" go away on MDN haven't been updated.) As for writing, you don't get unlimited unchecked writes the way that Chrome's proposed Filesystem Access API grants you, but you can trigger "checked" writes (that show a file save dialog) using `<a/>` elements with the `download` attribute. This is arguably a better user experience, because it keeps the user in the loop, giving them the opportunity to veto (or rename/relocate) the written file—which will be difficult or impossible to do if the Chrome team's proposed API became standard. Overall, the File System Access proposal is a bad one that gets the developer vs user prioritization wrong (favoring the convenience and satisfaction of the former over preserving control for the latter), and I hope it doesn't become either a de facto or a de jure fixture of the Web platform soon. Here's to hoping for a future post to the Chrome Developers blog announcing that this is yet another experimental API of theirs that they have decided is going to be sunset in some future release.

nine_k 4y ago
This is not access to the filesystem. This is access to some controlled contents that happen to come from the filesystem, with interaction explicitly initiated by the user every time. It gives the browser no access to the structure of the filesystem, no way to navigate it, and crucially no way to transparently read or write anything. This is good isolation, I'd prefer it to be this way. OFS also gives equally good isolation, I'm fine with that. Sharing between OFS and the rest of the user's file system should be possible, but only explicitly, a la iOS, Android, and the file upload / download dialog.
- cxr 4y ago
  Please follow the discussion; we are not referring to the narrow "origin private file system" here. > This is not access to the filesystem. Wrong. I know what "this" is, thanks, and it is access to the filesystem. That's because "this" here—in the subthread you have just posted to—refers to Chrome's experimental implementation of the larger proposal (which is literally called "File System Access API"), not the limited subset described by the submission as having just gotten enabed in Firefox.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Please take another look at the comment I was replying to. It was about <input type="file"> and <a> with disposition attribute, which are not filesystem access. While Google's new API definitely is.
    - cxr 4y ago
      > Please take another look at the comment I was replying to. It was about <input type="file"> and <a> with disposition attribute It's the `download` attribute, but yeah, I understand the significance of those words. I wrote them. Your replies in this thread, on the other hand, are confusing at best. What are you actually trying to communicate?

worksonmine 4y ago

What's wrong with <input type="file" /> and the $HOME/Downloads folder? Why is arbitrary access to a whole folder needed? Cool, yes. Dangerous? Very.

daveoc64 4y ago
That's how you end up with "March 2023 Report (Final) (Edited) (3).docx". Making users repeatedly upload and download the same file to work with it is clunky.
- throw0101b 4y ago
  > That's how you end up with "March 2023 Report (Final) (Edited) (3).docx". People having been doing that with Word and other local word processors using (SMB) file shares for decades. There's nothing special about web browsers that's causing it.
  - comex 4y ago
    People using Word in this manner typically create a new filename only occasionally, not every single time they save. Browsers, on the other hand, will create a new filename every single time a download is initiated. That makes downloads impractical to use as a web app’s sole persistence mechanism; a few smaller web apps do so anyway but it’s rare. And if they’re not the sole persistence mechanism, if downloads are just an export option separate from a ‘normal’ save, like you see in most web apps, then the 99.9% of users who don’t constantly export all their documents will have to deal with the consequences of the normal persistence mechanism. That is probably cloud storage, with associated centralization, privacy, and cost concerns, though it could also be browser-local temporary storage (cookies / localStorage / IndexedDB / origin-private file system), with reliability and portability concerns.
- worksonmine 4y ago
  I'd rather have the inconvenience of clicking the file I want to overwrite than accidentally giving a web-app access to something I didn't intend to. Making mistakes should be hard and intentional.