Alternate compression format for user post download?

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The discussion explores alternative compression formats for user post downloads. pfaffman suggests providing a .zip file instead of the current .csv.gz format, which can be difficult for non-technical users to access. However, codinghorror notes that producing a plain .zip file in Unix is challenging.

As an alternative solution, codinghorror mentions that most compression programs can handle GZip files.

Additionally, there are two other feature requests:

  • Converting user posts into a single HTML file
  • Including user-uploaded images in the download archive (which currently is not planned)
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Continuing the discussion from Download Archive of My Posts Implementation:

When I look at having my students download their posts to upload to a portfolio system, I notice that the .csv.gz file that is no problem for me to use on Ubuntu or a Mac are useless to a Normal Person who uses Windows. Sure, I would have 7zip (or similar) installed, but lots of people don’t.

If a .zip file were produced a Normal Person would be able to access their data. The computer scientist in me likes a gz better since it’s a single file, but the educator of teachers in me would rather not explain why a .gz file is “better.”

I’d also be interested in some means to convert the person’s posts into a single HTML file.

And, as I look closer at the dump, I see that only text, not uploaded images are exported. How hard would it be to include images in the dump? I guess that would mean that a CSV wouldn’t work anymore.

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I looked at this with @techapj a while ago, and it is surprisingly hard to produce a plain .zip file in Unix. So unfortunately, GZip it is for now.

Note that almost all decompression programs (WinZip and the like) can handle GZip files just fine.

There are no plans to include user uploaded images in the self-downloaded user post archive at this time.

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