BFS1 — Black Friday Special Chapter One. It would seem that developers have been working like crazy to get new, or updated stacks ready for the Black Friday Weekend. As I'm going to review a number of stacks today, I'll have my work cut out, so here goes!

First off: Paperless from Stacks4Stacks. A question that is regularly asked on the forums: "How can I put files online so that they can be downloaded?" The question arises most often because text links to file types that a browser can display natively, e.g. .jpg, or .pdf won't download the file, but display the file in question in the browser window.

But what if you want to share images with colleagues so that they can be used in a publication. Or what if you want to share an e-book? In such cases, it's impractical to first load the file in question to the browser and then save it to the computer.

Paperless solves the problem by searching an online directory for files and then displaying them for download. Each file that Paperless finds can then be downloaded with the click of a button.
Paperless' setup is extremely simple. You have two options to add your files.
Option One: Create a "downloads" folder on your desktop. Drop the files into the folder that you wish to place online. Drag the "downloads" folder to your project's resources. Publish your project. Paperless is already configured for this workflow, you don't need to alter anything. Your files are now ready for download.
Option Two: Create a folder on your server via FTP. E.G. "documents". In the stacks setup change the Paperless General Settings/Relative Path to ../documents. Publish your project. If your both your new "documents" folder and your "paperless" folder are at the top level of your site's directory, any files dropped into the documents folder will automatically appear on your Paperless page.
If you have placed the "documents" folder in a subdirectory, the Relative Path would be ../[subdirectory]/documents. If you have placed both the "paperless" and the documents folders within subdirectories, the path would be ../../[subdirectory]/documents.
../ informs the server-side php code that it is required to move up one directory-level each time it is encountered.

You may place multiple Paperless stacks on a page, if you wish to list more than one directory for downloads.
Paperless is highly configurable, so each aspect of the UI can be matched exactly to your site's design. You can also configure the way that files are ordered on your page and any changes within the downloads folder are reflected on your Paperless page immediately.

If you have set up Google Analytics for your website, Paperless has a Google Analytics option, and is able to communicate useful preview and download statistics back to Google Analytics, for display in your reporting data.
A list of your download files will be shown by their name. Next to each file name, the number of times that the preview button or download button was clicked is shown. From this information you can determine how many times a file has been downloaded and other information like the most popular times of day for downloads.

Paperless easily solves the problem of downloading files with RapidWeaver, it supports all common file types and will automatically display the correct document icons for common image formats, PDFs, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, OpenOffice, Pages, rich text, markdown, audio, video, zip, tar, and various code files so that these file types may be readily identified.

TIP: Check out the Stacks4Stacks website for Black Friday promotions beginning around 09:00/10:00 UST.
Also – Will has been hard at work updating seyDesign and Henk Vrieselaar themes. So don't forget to check out the seyDesign and Themeflood sites for promotions too – some of the themes come with complementary stacks!

Warehoused content keeps your RapidWeaver projects compact and reduces page loading times. We've all heard that, but uploading sites using the RW publishing controls doesn't allow us to freely access the resources folder and not everyone is comfortable using FTP software.
A perfect solution would be a secure file manager that allows you to upload your files via a browser and then to link to said files in RW.

Using Jannis of InStacks' own words Repository is the perfect solution! Judge for yourself.

Setting up Repository is a breeze. Drag the new stack into a Stacks page (it needs to reside on its own page), set a user name and password and publish.
Open up your repository directory in the browser and drag files into it, or download the files that it contains. There's nothing else to it.
Or is there?

First step – setting the user and password – Repository doesn't save passwords as plaintext, but uses a hash code which you'll first need to generate. That's simple enough – got to the Repository instruction page, scroll down to Generating your own password hash, click the link and enter the password you'd like to use. Click 'Generate Hash' and copy the result into the Password Hash field in the stack settings. Only a single user is allowed.
As a further safety precaution, Repository also has a Blacklist and a Whitelist. Lists of file extension that may, or may not be uploaded. This means that potentially harmful files will never land on your server. I tried to upload an .exe file and received an error message. Something tells me that someone is taking security very seriously here.

There is, of course, more to the setup than just entering the password hash. If you want your clients to be able to access the folder, there are a few options available in the Repository stack settings that will help improve security.

"But why would you want your clients to be able to access the repository?" I hear you ask.
Because if your images are warehoused and your client has access to them, he/she can replace them at will. And, if you've added text blocks to your project using a stack such as Embed from S4S, he/she could change the text content too!

Repository currently offers two flavours. Bootstrap, or Material Design. Both look quite attractive when loaded in your browser (you don't see a lot in edit, or preview mode), but more importantly, the user interface is functional. The menu at the top of the page includes Refresh; Search; Upload; New Document; New Folder and Logout.
It's not immediately obvious, but you can just drag files into the browser window to upload them to the server.

Text files can be edited directly by clicking the Edit button, but the most distinctive feature is a built in lightbox for images.

Stack Settings

Theme - Bootstrap Design, Material Design
Nav Back Colour
Nav Text Colour
Check Authentication - can be deactivated
Username
Password Hash
Language
Timezone
Open Files In New Window

Then follow a flurry of additional options to allow, or disallow: File Download, Copy To Clipboard, Copy/Move Files/Directories, Create Directories, Create Files, Edit Files, Delete Files/Directories, Extract Archives, Upload, Rename, Create Archives.
Show: Last Modified Date, File Size, Image Dimensions, Owner, Group Htdocs, Hidden Files.

If you need a secure File Manager, Media Browser, and Online Text Editor for RapidWeaver, Repository is most certainly a very good choice.