hosting a file for downloads, capturing information

[Steven Avery]

Using
Xenforo as my research forum 
Box.com as my main long term file holder (have experience with Drivehq, Google Docs, etc.)
Linode as my host. (So even with a lot of pictures and space it is $25 a month.)
Gentleman in Germany as my excellent, occasional support.  He set up the Xenforo on Linode, I had left vBulletin.

We expect some downloads of our work here as explained in the first post:

Borislav Borisov - Bulgarian paper - epigraphy, graphology, palaeography, codicoligy, calligraphy
https://www.purebibl...gy-calligraphy.3023/

The first post explains what we are doing. 
The files go a long way to showing that Codex Sinaiticus is not an ancient 4th century manuscript. 

Please feel free to read and give feedback.

When there is a download, it would be nice to capture some information about who is doing the download. 
Name, email address, any comments, etc.  (At the moment I am simply using Gmail Contacts as my main contact PIM.)
Without being too obstructive. 

Any improvements you can suggest?
Anything better than Box.com?

Downloads will likely be in the dozens, or possibly hundreds, over April and May.
And we may add other files.

Would prefer not to do any programming at this time.
Not sure if Xenforo has any plug-ins that might help, but prefer to keep it vanilla.

Thanks!

Steven

[sphere]

I am always interested in how people use platforms to work collaboratively.  I think a plugin will likely be the easiest way and I am assuming there is a marketplace and forum for that. I am not able to do that, but maybe someone here could take it on.

I have been on sites (generally photo sites) that restrict downloads.  A popup came up saying downloads were not allowed. I wondering if  you could make a pop-up with a contact form/questionnaire. Or maybe adding the form to a captcha???
I am guessing if you require membership you will have a greater ability to track what people download.  Putting a banner along the top of each page  asking people to fill out a form might be something to do in the meantime.  Or adding a landing page. 

Edit: I did a quick search and found the following https://xenforo.com/...wnload-tracker.8746/
This developer might be able to tweak their plugin.   Might be other existing plugins.

[Steven Avery]

Edit: I did a quick search and found the following https://xenforo.com/...wnload-tracker.8746/
This developer might be able to tweak their plugin.   Might be other existing plugins.

-sphere (April 12, 2023, 12:00 PM)

Yes, a nice plug-in, thanks.  I'm not trying to get people to become members of my forum, though and it seems to require that, although I could check..

In the meantime I have added DriveHQ.com to Box.com and improved my explanation.

[publicdomain]

Without being too obstructive.

-Steven Avery (April 11, 2023, 06:48 PM)

I'm not trying to get people to become members of my forum

-Steven Avery (April 17, 2023, 05:45 AM)

Hello & good day Steven! Since you want fellow guests to also provide info when downloading, how about having a simple off-forum download page featuring some form fields plus "Submit & download" button?

The hosted page remains within your site's domain and the file is delivered from your Linode server via php script (with a redirection to prevent direct linking).

I can engage in such a straightforward off-forum hosted script if you wish

It will be open sourced at GitHub for utmost transparency 

Cheers!
Vic

[Deozaan]

Could you link to a Google Forms survey with some required fields, and after those required fields are submitted, the last page of the Google Forms shows the download link?

[abhamit533]

This is a basic and fundamental purpose of having computer networks.

You have computer networks to get access to other computer files and for other computers to access yours.

With the Internet this is controlled so that you can easily set up access to only files that you permit others to see. That is why we have websites. It used to be that we only accessed other computers at school with educational networks, work with corporate networks or at home for only very special computer geek kind of people.

The Internet allows you to access other files including your own that you may store online through file storage services. You have heard of “Google Drive”, “One Drive” and “DropBox”, have you?