IP.Downloads 2.1

While upgrading our addon applications for IP.Board 3.0 compatibility, we blogged about the state of the updates and our plans for the future. At that time, we detailed that there wouldn't be many new features in the applications initially, but instead that we would be releasing feature updates for our addon applications later this year.



Development for IP.Downloads 2.1 is well underway and we wanted to take a moment to highlight the new features you should expect to see in the next release of IP.Downloads. These features have largely been decided upon based on suggestions in our feedback forum.



Friendly URLs

IP.Downloads 2.1 will feature friendly urls for the main index page, category view pages, file view pages, and downloading files.



Resume Breakpoints Toggle

Some customers have requested the ability to turn off IP.Download's capability of downloading files in "parts" (this is primarily used by download accelerators that request multiple pieces of a file simultaneously). There will be a setting in IP.Downloads 2.1 to disable this functionality.



Global Settings vs Per-Category Settings

Some per-category settings (specifically: max file size and screenshot dimension settings) can now be configured globally as well. Once a global setting is set, if you do not specify the fields when configuring your categories, the global option will be used instead. This will allow you to more easily control some common settings quickly for your entire IP.Download installation, while still allowing for finer-grained per-category control should you need it.



Download Sessions

IP.Downloads already supports download sessions (which are used to track the number of simultaneous downloads a user has going). We will be expanding upon this to allow for download session urls. When a user requests to download a file, a unique link will be generated and this url will be used to download the file. Once complete, this unique url will be discarded. This feature will help prevent users from sharing direct download urls, and instead require users to visit the file information page before the download will commence.



Major changes to file storage

Presently, IP.Downloads allows you to upload (or link to) a single file and a single screenshot with each record. While generally this works well, many customers need the ability to support more than one file or screenshot for each record. We will be changing how files are stored within the system to accommodate some new features that are not presently possible. These features include:

• Use of the flash uploader for file uploads. This will allow for multiple simultaneous file uploads, as well as progress-bar support, when uploading files.
• Multiple files per file record. For instance, you might submit "My Home Movie", and then upload "movie.part1", "movie.part2", and "movie.part3" to break your movie into multiple pieces.
• Mirror support. Along with multiple physical files, you will be able to submit multiple urls, providing for built in mirror support by linking to copies of the download hosted elsewhere.
• Multiple screenshots per record

Thinking beyond the above features, you will be able to use the mirror support functionality for other things as well. For instance, you could submit links to "Related Tools", "Required Files", or "User-Contributed Files". By allowing multiple files and links per record, you will have a lot more control over the grouping of your files and how they are presented to your users.





We believe the above features represent the most requested and most needed features for IP.Downloads, and hope that our customers will be able to benefit from the new functionality. We will post another blog update later on when IP.Downloads 2.1 is ready for beta testing, as well as blog updates about our other applications in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!