List Files On File Server and Select

Ignition
1

I need to display PDF files on clients that are selected from a separate management project. I would like to store the files on the server web server (instead of doing shared folders) and the project to select what file to display to view the available files on the clients. The management project could be run from any number of workstations, but would need to store the files on the web server (e.g. MyWebServer:8088/main/PdfLocation) and then list the stored files for scheduling their display. I am thinking of using the File Explorer object to select any PDF file available to the management workstation and when selected, copy the file to the web server location and store that path information in a MS SQL database table. The issue I am having is to copy the file to the server location without using shared folders.

Any ideas on a work around on that?

2

Is it an option to store the pdf files directly in the database?

3

Not necessarily opposed to it, but not sure how to implement that method either. We have MS SQL Server 2008 in the system now and not really a lot of items being stored. Ignition and the DB Server are the same machine running Windows Server OS.

4

Here’s a video on how to store and retrieve pdfs from a database -
https://inductiveuniversity.com/video/storing-files-in-a-database?r=/course/sql-ignition

5

As long as your aren’t storing a ton of stuff the DB is a convenient place to do it since you are already accessing it.

MSSQL also has Filestream that is more optimized if you are storing a lot of files, but I haven’t actually tried to use that in Ignition. I’ve just done BLOB types like shown in the video Pat linked.

Also if you want to do Filestream that is something you would want to set up as you are installing MSSQL - going back and adding it will make you want to cry.