Would it be possible to have only one ZIP-file per topic as container for all attachments uploaded to that topic but still having the usual functionality on individual attachments.

This would address several problems about document management via TWiki:

1. Disk space - proprietary file formats are seldom optimized for disk space
2. File names - people often use strange file naming conventions (containing spaces, etc.)
3. ... - I am sure there are others too (maybe the same mechanism can be used for other types of 'attachments' too, I'm thinking about mail-messages seperately attached
4. Is it possible to set up once operating system to transparently support file compression for attachments? (how to configure automatically compressed folders?)

-- FranzJosefSilli - 22 Nov 2004

1. True.
2. This is a flaw in TWiki, it chooses to strip unusual characters instead of escaping them
3. That's why I moved it here
4. ditto

-- MartinCleaver - 22 Nov 2004

This looks like a nice idea for those who are very short of disk space, but it could dramatically increase upload times (e.g. uploading a 100 KB attachment to a topic with 50 MB of attachments).

The killer is that you need double the space occupied by the ZIP file to do updates, so this could make machines tight on disk space unable to update some attachments.

Re file names, TWiki is probably too restrictive on file names anyway - almost anything should be permitted as long as it doesn't clash with the OS rules for filenames.

Re OS support - Windows 2000 and later can be set up to transparently compress filesystems, which sounds like a better solution.

The ZIP file approach is a solution in search of a problem - better to state the requirements and come up with one or more solutions.

-- RichardDonkin - 24 Nov 2004

what about compressing the uploaded file if it's not compressed? The strange filename issue can be solved using a mapping filename->actualname.

Also, there should be an option to turn off attachment versioning, as the whole file is put in RCS ,v file if it's binary.

-- RafaelAlvarez - 24 Nov 2004