Bootstrap Studio Sites: Please Support Hosting Small Downloads (CSV files, etc.)

Ideas
1

I’m building a .app site and would like to provide some data for the users of my app in a CSV or Zip file. Unfortunately those file types aren’t (yet) supported in Boostrap Studio or Bootstrap Studio Sites.

2

They will probably never be supported because…

  1. Unlike images, stylesheets, and JavaScript, HTML does not parse .csv or .zip file types.
  2. When you save your Bootstrap Studio project, the program compresses all the assets… HTML, CSS, JS and Images, into a single .bsdesign file. If the program allowed you to import zip files, they could potentially be massive in size. This would make saving and opening the website cumbersome. It also would not make sense to compress an already compressed file.

You can still offer these file through your website by hosting them either on cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, Github, etc.) or by getting your own hosting and uploading them to your server via FTP.

1 Like
3

alternative:

  • save them on bss savefile as json file. whether as string value of a key, or fully converted as json.
  • handle download request manually on client, perhaps by save to local disk.
  • this approach technically can also be used as to host any kind of file extension via base64 url `src=”value”`.
  • also just because it is possible, please don’t abuse this approach, as bss might failed to export/publish if your site size became to big.
4

We want to keep the Bootstrap Studio Sites focused on simple sites that are easy to host. This is the only way we can provide the hosting service for free. Zip files in particular are very risky, as users can put malware, distributed pirated software, etc. CSVs kinda make sense, but can be generated on demand with a bit of JS.

Of course if you have a hosting account somewhere you can set up Bootstrap Studio to publish via SFTP, and upload whatever you wish.

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5

I totally understand. I purchased though because of the hosting bundle and great value and superb tool. So hosting somewhere else isn’t as desirable. Please consider adding CSV since it’s a harmless text file. The solution above works but it’s a bit of a hack and requires extra steps to put the CSV data in an mjs instead of just adding the file to the project.

1 Like