from fccview@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 27 Nov 20:26
https://lemmy.world/post/39405764
Hi all!
Some of you may know me for jotty and cr*nmaster, today I wanted to share my latest creation, it happened on a whim, someone on our discord server needed a simple and lightweight file sharing system (something that works similarly to dropbox) and I really wanted to challenge myself and learn the latest standards for next15/react19 (i’m a tech lead in a software engineering company I, use nextjs/react at work so I tend to try and learn stuff on my own time to not be left behind).
Anyhow! I really wanted to make something that felt… magic (hence why the name Scatola Magica - Italian for magic box).
Repo url: https://github.com/fccview/scatola-magica
My plan was to make something that
- Allows folder upload (it was a must)
- Allows uploading from ANYWHERE by just dropping a file on the page (yes you can literally drop a file in the settings page and it WILL still get uploaded)
- Breaks files in chunks and uploads them in parallel (this way it truly feels stupidly fast)
- Looks/feels nice and professional (still working on it, it’s a beta)
- If you copy something in your clipboard and paste it, it’ll upload it (not text, literal files).
- Allow users to upload files onto your server within their own folder, no need for permissions, works like an operative system, each user have their own folder they have access to (unless they are admin, at which point they see anything you mounted on the docker image/anything in the dedicated upload folder)
There’s a bunch of shortcuts, it already has OIDC login and most things have been documented in the repo howto/ folder.
Short term goals
- E2E encryption (or some sort of encryption DURING upload)
- Better upload feedback when uploading folders with tons of files (it currently hangs until it starts uploading, not great UX)
I always get a few every single post, so let’s get the cat out of the bag, no, this is NOT vibe coded, yes, I obviously use AI in my workflow - what developer wouldn’t in 2025 - especially in my personal projects, doesn’t take away the huge amount of work I put in everything I do :)
Remember this is still a beta, it may be a bit quirky and have bugs, feedback are EXTREMELY appreciated and feel free to open issues on the github page, I am fairly active and keep an eye on things. Another way to directly contact me is via the official discord for my apps - you can find that on the repo, I don’t want to spam things here.
Hope you like it :)
#selfhosted
threaded - newest
Can it use files already on my server?
Will it support WebDAV?
Looking great!
Hey! Yeah as long as you set the folder to the right permissions :) And I am a bit torn between WebDAV or straight websocket as it already allows file manipulation straight from the UI, so may be easier to have a socket server for collaborations
Glad you like it ♥️
They both have their place. WebDav is an established standard, by implementing it you are collaborating with all the other implementations that already use and are compatible with WebDav in some way. You join a growing ecosystem of many choices and people can easily plug your software into their architecture and plug their architecture into your software with an absolute minimum of work on their part, potentially allowing it to become widely used. This is good.
Having a socket and API allows anyone who wants to, to collaborate with your software specifically, allowing them to be able to do things highly specific to your software, but requiring more specialized work to implement. These kind of implementations can deliver great functionality but they’re likely going to be few and far between because they are more work to develop and maintain. These are very different situations, being sought by different people with different goals.
Thank you, this is awesome! I’ll have a proper investigation and decide what route to go to, I don’t know enough about WebDAV and I like to make studied choices, you gave me a lot to think about and that’s great!🙌
By supporting WebDav your app will instantly gain the possibility to sync with every OS and a gazillion apps. It is not the best protocol, but it’s everywhere and it’s very good when implemented well. For example, CopyParty’s WebDav implementation is blazing fast.
Afterwards, you could enhance the experience by supporting websockets so that contributors can build clients specific to your project. This will take much more time to reach the user with a usable sync app, but can potentially end up in a superior experience.
Hey thanks, I was properly looking into WebDAV yesterday, should be simple enough to implement, just making sure I don’t add features for the sake of it, once I’m certain it’s the right way to go I’ll implement it properly, for now my biggest aim is to get the tool as stable as possible ♥️
Looks like a worthy replacement for Filebrowser. I’ll definitely check this out.
Thank you so much! Let me know how you get on!
This looks very intriguing. I think I may just have a specific use case for it. Thanks for the work, and again thanks so much for including screen shots. I’ll have to spin this up later today and give it a go. Are you Italian by chance?