Assets - Showing a specific folder

Question

If I had a folder with a series of subfolders that matched the username, could I show those files to that specific user? Looking to try making a download portal, but the files are not small enough to be uploaded through PHP. Example:

File Manager Settings:

/home/www/files/

Assets Folder tag: parent_folder="{filedir_x}"

But I wanted to show a single folder in the files directory:

/home/www/files/{username}

Assets Folder tag: parent_folder="{filedir_x}{username}"

The entire tag would look like this:

{exp:assets:folders parent_folder="{filedir_20}admin" recursive="yes"}
    <h3>{folder_name}</h3>
    <ul>
        {exp:assets:files folder_id="{folder_id}"}
            <li><a href="{url:huge}" target="_blank">{if title != ""}{title}{if:else}{filename}{/if}</a></li>
        {/exp:assets:files}
    </ul>
{/exp:assets:folders}

Using just {filedir_x} worked, but adding {filedir_x}{username} did not. Is it possible without using entries and just the two Assets tags? And I would assume from previous posts that if it could, it would show all files as a flat list, and not nested within subfolders?

Answer 1

Blair,

when Expression Engine calls Assets module tags, {username} is still just a string saying "{username}" (see Low's excellent overview for parse order - http://bit.ly/UwfZE2). You'll have to get the username using a different approach - probably by using PHP on Input.

Answer 2

(To answer a request on what I did) I used a list of folder that .load a template of files like so:

URL: site.com/downloads/me/blair Username is required in the URL so the segment variable can be used to parse early enough. logged_in_username won't work alone. There are addons to get around this, might do that in the future, but I couldn't find a native EE way.

File Directory: home

- blair
- - Folder 1
- - - file1
- - - file2
- - - file3
- - Folder 2
- - - file4

Folders:

<ul>
  {exp:assets:folders parent_folder="{filedir_29}{segment_3}" recursive="no"}
  <li>
    <a href="{path='downloads/_assets'}/{folder_id}/{username}">{folder_name}</a>
    {if total_subfolders}
      <ul>
      {subfolders}
      </ul>
    {/if}
  </li>
  {/exp:assets:folders}
</ul>

Files: URL: site.com/downloads/me/1234 (folder id)

{exp:assets:files folder_id="{segment_3}"}
    {exp:link_vault:download_link file_path='{server_path}' text="{filename}"}
      {!-- File display stuff --}
      {!-- Ex: --}
      {server_path} - {filename}...etc. 
    {/exp:link_vault:download_link}    
{/exp:assets:files}

I also have some protection, such as wrapping it in a {if segment_3 !=""} so it won't show every single folder (kaboom!) and {if segment_3 != logged_in_username}. We've also added member_group=="1" to that last conditional so we can check other users list of files quickly, and we don't run a public system to worry about security, all campus internal stuff. Link vault to track downloads and there's another template to post files publicly that does need link limitations & hiding.