1. Introduction
2. Usage
3. Resources
4. Final Notes

Introduction ¶

The following wiki is to explain how to make use of the TbFileUpload widget from YiiBooster. I have received a couple of requests and I thought was worth writing a wiki for it.

Usage ¶

Preparation ¶

First, we need to make sure we have a folder with write permissions, that will be the place where we are going to save our uploaded files.

I normally create a files folder and I allocate it within my www one, that is where I keep my css, js, images files. So, even though you can place it where ever you wish and for the sake of the example, I will use the files folder name.

I also assume that you have configured a path alias that references the files folder. On this example, the path alias is frontend.www.files.

Setup your model ¶

The way you handle validation on the server is up to you, the configuration I am going to provide now is just an example.

We are going to add one extra attribute to the model picture, which is going to hold any $_FILE type resource uploaded and validated when model is on upload scenario.

class MyModel extends CActiveRecord {
// ... more code here
/**
* This is the attribute holding the uploaded picture
* @var CUploadedFile
*/
public $picture;
// ... more code

/**
* @return array validation rules for model attributes.
*/
public function rules()
{
  return array(
    // ... more rules here
    array('picture', 'length', 'max' => 255, 'tooLong' => '{attribute} is too long (max {max} chars).', 'on' => 'upload'),
    array('picture', 'file', 'types' => 'jpg,jpeg,gif,png', 'maxSize' => 1024 * 1024 * 2, 'tooLarge' => 'Size should be less then 2MB !!!', 'on' => 'upload'),
    // ... more rules here
  );
}

Configuring the Widget ¶

To render the widget on your view is quite straightforward, the are a couple of things very important to configure:

• the url where we are going to upload our files
• the file types we are going to accept and their maximum size

Now, lets render it:

<?php $this->widget('bootstrap.widgets.TbFileUpload', array(
    'url' => $this->createUrl("my/upload"),
    'model' => $model,
    'attribute' => 'picture', // see the attribute?
    'multiple' => true,
    'options' => array(
    'maxFileSize' => 2000000,
    'acceptFileTypes' => 'js:/(\.|\/)(gif|jpe?g|png)$/i',
))); ?>

Handling Upload ¶

Everything is ready now but the controller. We have to configure the action that will handle the upload process. Here you go, the upload action of our controller -very, very basic - and not fully tested:

class myController extends CController {
// ... more code here

/**
* Handles resource upload
* @throws CHttpException
*/
public function actionUpload()
{
    header('Vary: Accept');
    if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT']) && 
        (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'], 'application/json') !== false))
    {
        header('Content-type: application/json');
    } else {
        header('Content-type: text/plain');
    }
    $data = array();

    $model = new MyModel('upload');
    $model->picture = CUploadedFile::getInstance($model, 'picture');
    if ($model->picture !== null  && $model->validate(array('picture'))
    {
        $model->picture->saveAs(
        Yii::getPathOfAlias('frontend.www.files').'/'.$model->picture->name);
        $model->file_name = $model->picture->name;
        // save picture name
        if( $model->save())
        {
            // return data to the fileuploader
            $data[] = array(
                'name' => $model->picture->name,
                'type' => $model->picture->type,
                'size' => $model->picture->size,
                // we need to return the place where our image has been saved
                'url' => $model->getImageUrl(), // Should we add a helper method?
                // we need to provide a thumbnail url to display on the list
                // after upload. Again, the helper method now getting thumbnail.
                'thumbnail_url' => $model->getImageUrl(MyModel::IMG_THUMBNAIL),
                // we need to include the action that is going to delete the picture
                // if we want to after loading 
                'delete_url' => $this->createUrl('my/delete', 
                    array('id' => $model->id, 'method' => 'uploader')),
                'delete_type' => 'POST');
        } else {
            $data[] = array('error' => 'Unable to save model after saving picture');
        }
    } else {
        if ($model->hasErrors('picture'))
        {
            $data[] = array('error', $model->getErrors('picture'));
        } else {
            throw new CHttpException(500, "Could not upload file ".     CHtml::errorSummary($model));
        }
    }
    // JQuery File Upload expects JSON data
    echo json_encode($data);
}

// .... more code here 

} // end of controller

Resources ¶

• http://blueimp.github.com/jQuery-File-Upload/

Final Notes ¶

The upload action example was not really tested, if any of you had problems with it, please submit your changes to the YiiBooster Forum Topic. Any help would be highly appreciated to improve this wiki.