I've searched and searched and there are really only a couple of tools available that allow folder permissions beyond the basic Public, Registered and Special. I needed to allow each user to access only their folder(s) and no one else's. With over 500 user folders, I also needed the process to be fast and without the site crashing.

I tried ReMOSitory since it was packaged with my installation. It was fine at first. I could quickly manage permissions by basically allowing access to just the user and the admins. Unfortunately, my host didn't like how long it took to run things and kept shutting it down. I couldn't make any changes except through phpMyAdmin.

With VFM you don't have to add files, they're added simply by puting them in your download directory which saved me many hours of work. If you're new to Joomla and you just need something that works, without lots to configure, this is a great extension and since it's in Ajax the page doesn't have to refresh every time you make a change so it's quick.

There are down sides, however. With 500+ folders, 2000+ files and 480+ users, it's going to be very time consuming to set up the proper permissions. It just might be easier for me to write my own code where permissions are involved. This isn't just a VFM problem though, it's really most extensions availble that requre permissions. I wish there was quicker way than having to set each folder's permissions one by one, other than doing an SQL query in phpMyAdmin. For instance, I want to deny all guests, deny everyone who doesn't own the folder, allow all administraters "management" access, and then individually apply "view" access by user. That would be ideal.

I really like the layout, it fits perfectly with my site without any modification because it's simple and clean. It would be nice if the developer had a working website, demo, video as mentioned, and documentation. Feature requests: if the user doesn't have permission to access any files, I'd prefer it just told them they didn't have any files rather than showing a blank page with "Category" and "File" floating aimlessly. It'd also be nice to have a backend administration so I don't have to work in two places. I'd also really like to see the file count in the administration area -- I'd like to know if a folder is accidentally empty at the very least.

It's a good tool. I have a few thousand files I have to host on my site so I think I have find something else. The one folder I need to access, the downloads folder, will not load. It has 516 folders in it so I assume that's the problem because I can open all the other folders.

I would prefer a better layout though. If I need to select a lot of files, clicking all those little check boxes drives me nuts. I also don't like that it uses a bunch of icons and the only way to know what they are is to hover over them. I prefer words, I don't have time to hunt for things. I would also have preferred a .zip file option when downloading. I can't open .tar.gz without downloading additional software so I had to install it to see the files.

Version 3.40 is great for small-time document management but I just can't get bulk upload or add whole structure from server to work no matter what. I have had to do extensive editing of the php files to disable images and other style features in order to make it look presentable and to make it integrate into my site.

I've tried to upgrade to 3.42 but it gives you one or two changes to get the download right (which is impossible with internet explorer most of the time) and then you're out of luck. "Sorry" and you have no download option despite the fact that you haven't downloaded anything.

I have 500+ folders with 1-6 folders in each plus 1-20+ files in each of those and without bulk upload/add whole structure from server there's no way I can use this extension despit all the work I've put into modifying the way it looks. The fact that it's pre-packaged [with my web host?] gives me the impression that it's much closer to perfect which it's defintely not.

This is exactly what I was looking for. Nothing to install or configure, nothing to unpack, it's just too simple to be true. Other Google Sitemap Generators don't like that Joomla is database driven, they seem to prefer simple page:file websites. My website has grown to over 2000 content items in just over three months so I needed a sitemap tool that didn't need a lot of manual updating. This is the perfect tool for all Joomla! users looking to add a sitemap to google's Webmaster Tools.

It's "near" perfect because the "lastmod" tags are only going to pull up dates if the content was modified. If it was never modified it wil just show "0000-00-00 00:00:00". A small modification changes this to use the "created" date if the modified date is equal to "0000-00-00 00:00:00".

I'm not sure where to post my modification since I can't here so you're welcome to send me an email: webmaster[at]amas-veritas[dot]com and I can send it to you until I find out who to notify. If you want another example, my sitemap is here: http://www2.amas-veritas.com/sitemap.php

Note: this modification is also handy if you want to verify that all of your pages have a created date. I found 5 of my pages were missing a date.

The download page for this extension gives you everything you need to paste into your pages, there's nothing to read except to make sure you put the images in the right place. The "lightbox" layout for the full size image looks great with any website just, almost looks like a polaroid. Great extension, thanks.