How should I share Windows directories?

I use SyncTrayzor and after finally understanding Syncthing philosophy I am ready to slice and dice my folders for sharing.

In order to share a folder on Windows, I use an “artisanal” way because I did not find any other in the docs:

  • I copy the path from Internet Explorer
  • in Synctrayzor I paste the path and then copy the name of the folder from that path

Is there a more clever way to do that? Since Synctrayzor was not installed, there were no context menus added to Internet Explorer

I assume that you mean “Windows Explorer” and not “Internet Explorer”. Is this correct?

Syncthing itself provides path autocompletion. Basically, when you click on the path input field when adding a new folder, you should be presented with a list of subfolders that you can click on / use arrow keys on the keyboard to select them.

However, I’ve just tried doing that inside SyncTrayzor, and for some reason the folder path completion doesn’t seem to work inside it. It does work fine when using the GUI inside a Web browser though. If that’s the case for you too, then you may want to try reporting a bug on the SyncTrayzor’s issue tracker (after verifying that no-one else has already done it).

Ah, thanks, sorry - Internet Explorer was in the news and it stuck :). Yes of course I mean File Explorer. Everything in Windows is an exploration, or so it seems.

I checked on Synctrazor, the web interface (127.0.0.1) and the web interface of a remote server (a docker container on Linux). On none I had the possibility to choose a file through a picker. This said - I am almost sure that, at some point, I saw a small triangle on one of the forms (I am experimenting with Syncthing for two days so it may just have been my imagination).

I will open a bug if this is the expected behaviour.

Yeah, normally you should see something like this.

If you refer to a button “browse” right next to the folder path input field, this is a feature of SyncTrayzor. It manipulates syncthing’s GUI to inject a native folder browser. It’s not a feature of syncthing. IIRC there was some discussion in the past whether to add something like this to syncthing, and decision was taken not to do this, as you can’t do it in a native browser enviroment - its only possible if you can manipulate the browser, which syncthings architecture is not designed to.

Yes, the problem with browsers is that JS can request a file picker, but only for uploading, and only for files (not directories). Without a native client it won’t word indeed.

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Ah yes, the server doesn’t get the file path, just the file, right? Plus the file picker would always refer to the local machine the browser is running on, but the syncthing instance we’re talking to could be on a remote machine. This could only work if there was a mechanism to “fake” the filesystem view presented by the browser.

Exactly. The JS Web API for files is intended for retrieval, like you write, from the local machine. It is up to JS to do something with it.

In a remote context, it indeed does not make much sense - not to mention that you cannot pick a directory (=path), just the file (or files).

There is a good explanation of the mechanism at File - Web APIs | MDN and then specifically at File.webkitRelativePath - Web APIs | MDN, with an example fo how it works.

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