File sharing overview

[gondzo]

File sharing in connect is a pain right now. We either upload the files to specification section, or add a link to shared google drive folder.
Links to files in specification section are valid for 10 minutes so we can't really link to them in posts. Sharing via Drive is problematic as some clients can't access it due to company policy restrictions.
We need a general solution for file sharing on the project, probably with a dedicated tab for files with directory support.
For a quick fix, I suggest we update project service to add an endpoint for downloading files without expiration time so we can link to files. The change is simple - don't sign the s3 download links when calling /get/projectId, but sign them in the new endpoint and redirect to the target url.

Here is a list of requirements for file sharing and some questions we should discuss

• separate section for file sharing (tab)
• support directories (nested?)
• file thumbnails
• accept email attachments sent as replies to posts (possibly display all attachments in a separate directory on files tab?)
• Add file upload support to post editor
• Allow import from google drive, one drive, dropbox, etc
• file preview ( do we need this? might be just unnecessary burden, but if there is a ready made solution for this, it would be a good feature)
• versioning (useful for things like requirements documents, but not essential IMO)
• Permissions should not be strictly tied to connect projects. File service should allow managing files for other purposes, like challenge files (images, requirement specs) and allow setting permissions (or just making some files public)
• Files dashboard that would list all files/directories I have access to

Can we stick to using AWS S3 for file storage?

here is a small POC design made by @vic-topcoder

[vikasrohit]

+1

[vic-georgiev]

The design of the tabs/navigation/side will probably change. Focus on the white card view only at this point.