Generate Windows .lnk file with PHP

Hello,

I'm working on a project which involves an FTP server running ProFTPd and a PHP/MySQL backend that creates accounts for users.

Upon the creation of accounts, users are sent e-mails with their account details and instructions for downloading FileZilla or CyberDuck, depending on their OS, detected via user-agent string.

To make things easier for novices, I thought of having .lnk files generated for FileZilla with the account logins details as parameters, so they would just have to click on the .lnk files to open up the server. This is not a crucial feature but more of a technical challenge.

My questions are :

is this even feasible ? are there any alternatives (eg. generating a .bat with a script pointing to the Filezilla executable ?)
are there any issues, perhaps with relative / absolute paths pointing to the executable ?
to go even further, what would be the simplest way of providing users with software with FTP access on a single account / single server (web interface is not an option).

I don't see any way that you can do this while making it easier for novice users. If you create a shortcut file, you'd have to know the path of the install. Good luck getting that from a user who you assume would have a hard time using a username/password in an FTP program. Even if you got that, you'd be generating the shortcut file after you receive input from the user, then you'd have to email the file to the user or have them download it -> delay.

I would advise against this. Having worked with clueless users before, any attempt to make things "easier" for them but requiring them to do something else usually backfires immensely. Save yourself the headache, and provide a very well-written how-to instead.

Thanks. I guess this is good advice, but as I've said this is more of a technical challenge. User "cluelessness" would in fact be highly variable, and I guess a well written howto would do, but I'm looking for the simplest solution that I would then be able to integrate into various projects, besides I'm thinking this might be of some interest to fellow Stackoverflow users.

Andrei 2010-06-08 16:40:50

I'm sure it is. I do however advocate the 'keep it simple' school of thought. And from your initial question it sounds like user skill is a concern.

Jan Kuboschek 2010-06-08 16:47:23

Yeah, I do to :). To be honest, this wouldn't even solve all problems with user skill, as I'm finding most FTP client interfaces to be exceedingly complicated, FileZilla included (chose it because it's open-source and translated in french which is the language the project is aimed at).The ideal situation would be to have a very simple, drag-and-drop style FTP interface, but so far I've had no luck in finding one, no to mention open-source or translated in french. OS X does have a couple of interesting FTP clients, but Windows, as always, is full of multi-panel bloated interfaces.

Andrei 2010-06-08 16:53:04

That sounds like a good alternative ! Would it be possible / not to much of a hassle to generate the file and include it the FileZilla installer or with a portable version of FileZilla (generated, zipped, then sent to the user ?).Would this pre-populate the connection fields or just generate the shorcuts within the FileZilla interface (ie. does this provide a scripting interface ?).Also, do you know of any other FTP clients that provide this kind of configuration mechanism ?

Andrei 2010-06-08 16:38:34

@Andrei it's definitely possible, it's just an XML file. For optimum security, leave out the password. I guess it might be possible to include it with a portable version, you'd have to try out. It would pre-populate the server fields. I don't think there is a scripting language. I don't know of any other FTP clients that provide this, but then, I haven't looked at many. But for Windows, also check out rightload (www.rightload.org) I think it can be pre-populated as well and works like a charm using the Windows Explorer context menu.

Pekka 2010-06-08 16:41:21

Security is not really an issue. I'm guessing the biggest danger would be in providing the users with the password so that they have to store it / enter it themselves, compared to that, sending it in clear or having it stored in plain text is not such of a big deal.Righload seems nice, but I'm working with non-english speaking users, and this seems to be closed-source (not to mention I wouldn't go as far as translating an FTP program and re-compiling it :)).

Andrei 2010-06-08 16:45:38

@Andrei Rightload is great because you can upload whole folders with three clicks, but it is indeed closed source. In that case, Filezilla is probably your best option. The XML files can contain the password in clear text.

Pekka 2010-06-08 16:48:32

Ok, if I do chose this route, I'll think I'll go with the filezilla.xml solution, although it doesn't seem to pre-populate fields (although things like last connection and pre-configured servers work). Other than that it seems to work very nicely with FileZilla portable, so paths aren't an issue. Thanks !

Andrei 2010-06-08 17:08:21

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Generate Windows .lnk file with PHP

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