Gentics Content.Node Fileuploaders

At the time of writing, there are three different file uploaders. This page explains the differences between each file uploader.

1 Overview

Name / Info Standard fileuploader gcnfileupload-plugin WebDAV (deprecated)
Used in New file / File properties / Tagfill dialog Aloha Editor Open folder (context menu)
Multi-file Yes No Yes
Drag & drop Yes (HTML5 browsers) Minimal (browser dependent) Yes
Backend technology GCN REST API GCN REST API WebDAV
Frontend technology Dynamic (HTML5, Flash, Google Gears, Silverlight, HTML4) Javascript WebDAV
FUM Yes Yes No

2 Recognized image types

The following filetypes will be automatically recognized as images during upload. Any other file types will be recognized as files. The detection works based on the files mimetype, the file extension is ignored.

2.1 Mimetype detection

The mimetype detection is done based on the file content by the Java library “Apache Tika”. Container formats like Microsoft .docx are supported and resolved to “application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document” instead of “application/zip” (the main mime type of .docx). Additionally, if the content based mimetype detection fails for a file, the mimetype is determined by the files extension, based on Javas mime.types mapping.

3 General settings

You can enforce a max filesize for uplading files:

/Node/etc/node.conf

$MAX_FILESIZE = "64M";

See How can i raise the upload limit for files and images? for more information.

3.1 JPG / CMYK

Images using the color model CMYK are supported by Gentics Content.Node, however be in mind that older browsers (ie.: IE 6-8, FF2) do not support them.

Due to GCN using a generic color profile for CMYK, the image colors might be slightly different after resizing/cropping with the Gentics Image Store or the Image manipulator.

4 FUM (File Uploader Manipulator)

The FUM is a user-API that allows intercepting the file upload process. This enables a custom implementation to modify the uploaded data or check it and possible reject the upload. Possible applications include video conversion and virus checks.

More Info

5 Allowed characters


a-z A-Z 0-9 _ , . - ( ) [ ] { } $

All other characters will be automatically replaced with underscores with the exception of the following characters, which are replaced as follows:


ö = oe    Ö = Oe
ü = ue    Ü = Ue
ä = ae    Ä = Ae
ß = ss

The total character limit for a filename is 64 characters. Any longer filename will be trimmed to the maximum length of 64 characters.

For characters custom replacements see Sanitize names.

6 Default Upload Folders

It is possible to define default upload folders for images and files (separately) per node in the node properties dialog.

The default upload folders will be used

  • When a user creates a new image/file out of the tagfill dialog (when filling a part of type URL (File) or URL (image).
  • When a user uploads a new image/file using Aloha Editor (while setting a link).

The default upload folders will not be used

  • When a user uploads files/images in the tagfill dialog using a part of type Folder (Upload).
  • When a user creates a new image/file in the backend after selecting a specific folder and clicking on New|Image or New|File in the main menu.