|Documentation

File management

The file manager

Each instance has its own file space: your QGIS projects, their Lizmap configuration and the data they use. The file manager shows it in your browser. Open it from the instance's page, reached from Instances, with the Files button.

The file manager: at the top, the path of the open folder (here Root), the search and the space used; below, the action bar; then the content, with a checkbox and a menu on each row. A folder's size is that of its content.

At the top: Back to the parent folder and the folder path; on the right, Filter this folder…, Refresh, switching from List view to Grid view and the space used by your account. Below, the action bar is always shown: Send and New folder, then, for the selection, its count, Download, Rename and Delete, grayed out while nothing is selected. The three dots, More actions, offer Open, Copy, Cut, Paste, To the database for a GeoPackage and Validate project. A selected QGIS project adds Open the map to the bar, which opens its Lizmap map in a new tab, and Validate project; the icon of a published project also opens its map in one click. Security, next to the search, sets the instance's protections: Protection against deletion and Protect QGIS projects.

Double-click a folder to open it, a file to download it. The path takes you back to any parent folder in one click. A row's checkbox selects it; the one in the header selects everything. The three dots at the end of a row, right-clicking or a long press on a touch screen open the menu of its actions; Refresh reloads the folder, for instance after an upload made from QGIS.

Sending files

  1. Open the destination folder.
  2. Click Send, or choose Upload files in the right-click menu. The Send window opens.
  3. Upload a folder sends a whole folder, subfolders included; Upload files sends one or more files.

If an item with the same name already exists, the Files already exist window asks whether to replace it. The progress window then shows the upload, the processing by the server, and the result. Refused files are listed there with the reason: see what is refused.

A shorter upload

  • A file already up to date on the instance, the same size and not modified since, is not sent again: resending a project folder where only the project changed takes a few seconds.
  • A modified GeoPackage only sends the parts that changed: correcting a few features in a 300 MB file sends only a few MB.
  • GeoPackage, Shapefile and CSV are compressed during the upload: two to three times less data on your connection.
  • A dropped connection does not restart everything: the upload resumes on its own. If the page was closed, send the same files again: what had already arrived is not sent again.
  • You can leave the file manager during an upload: it carries on, and an indicator at the bottom of the screen follows its progress. Do not close the tab before it ends.

For a large file on a slow connection, first put it on Google Drive or Dropbox, share it publicly, then paste its link in From a link, at the bottom of the Send window, and click Import. Your instance's server downloads the file itself, much faster than your connection would send it. A shared Google Drive folder is imported whole, subfolders included; a direct file address works too. Depending on the instance, this option may not be offered.

A QGIS project cannot be imported from a link: it has to be checked when it is sent. In an imported folder, projects are left aside and listed at the end: send them afterwards with Upload files, or from QGIS with the plugin. They only weigh a few KB.

Storage

The bottom of the page shows the number of items in the folder; at the top, next to the search, your storage used shows, against your plan's limit. An upload that does not fit in the remaining space is refused before it starts, and a window offers to move to a higher plan. When your quota is exceeded, the file manager stays open so you can make room, but uploads are blocked: see quotas.

A member of your team can only open the file manager with the Manage the files permission.

Copying, moving, renaming, deleting

Click an item, or check its box, to select it. Ctrl, or Cmd on a Mac, adds an item to the selection; Shift selects a range. Actions apply to the whole selection.

ActionHowWhat happens
CopyCopy then Paste in the target folder, or Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V.If the name is already taken, the copy gets the suffix - copie. The copy is refused if it exceeds your storage.
MoveCut then Paste, or Ctrl+X then Ctrl+V. You can also drag the items onto a folder, or onto a folder in the path.If the destination already holds those names, the Items already exist window offers Replace.
RenameRename in the action bar or the menu, or F2.One item at a time. The new name must not already be taken in the folder.
DownloadDownload in the action bar or the menu, or double-click a file.A folder, or several items, arrive in a ZIP archive. If the instance protects its QGIS projects, a .qgs or .qgz file marked Protected is not downloaded and stays out of the archive.
DeleteDelete in the action bar or the menu, or the Delete key.After confirmation, the items are erased, along with the whole contents of folders.

A published project is two files, the project and its .qgs.cfg, which share the same name. Renaming or moving one without the other removes the project from your portal.

A deletion frees the space at once, and your usage is recalculated within seconds. If you were over your quota, your instances restart by themselves once back under the limit.

A deletion is final: there is no recycle bin. Keep a copy of your projects and data on your own computer.

What is accepted, what is refused

The file manager accepts every type of file except those that could run on the server. These are refused, whatever their content:

  • programs and installers: .exe, .dll, .so, .msi, .deb, .rpm, .dmg;
  • scripts and source code: .sh, .bat, .cmd, .ps1, .py, .js, .ts, .php, .rb, .pl, .java, .jar, .c, .cpp, .cs, .go, .rs, .lua, .r and the other common languages;
  • SQL scripts: .sql;
  • system configuration files: .ini, .conf, .env, .htaccess, .htpasswd.

Before the upload, the Files not allowed window lists the files that will be left out and offers to go on with the others. To load an SQL script into the database, use your own tools: see connecting to the database.

A ZIP archive is not unpacked: it is stored as it is, and a project inside it is not published. Send the project's folder instead, with Upload a folder.

The checks on QGIS projects

Every QGIS project uploaded is examined before it is saved, and two faults get it refused:

  • layers in different coordinate systems: each diverging layer would be reprojected on every display, for every visitor. Save your layers in a single projection; base maps do not count;
  • PostgreSQL connections that point to a database other than the instance's. The reason for the refusal gives the expected address, database and port, those shown on the instance's page.

An accepted project may come with remarks, for instance about a layer that will make the map slow. They block nothing and appear in the progress window.

Examining a project without publishing it

Validate project, under More actions in the action bar, opens the Project validation page. If the folder shown holds a single .qgs project, it is analysed straight away; otherwise the page lets you choose. The report applies the same checks as the upload, sorts its findings by severity, and can be exported as CSV or JSON. Nothing is written to the instance.

Organizing a published project

The portal publishes the projects it finds in the instance's file space. The organization that avoids surprises:

  • one folder per project, rather than everything at the root;
  • in that folder, the project (.qgs or .qgz) and its .qgs.cfg, with the same name: see the two files of a project;
  • next to them, the project's data files, in the same relative positions as on your computer, so that the paths saved in the project stay valid;
  • large data, or data shared between projects, in the instance's database rather than in files.

The simplest way is to send the project's folder as it is on your computer, with Upload a folder: the structure is kept. A path that points to your own disk, such as C: or /home, leads nowhere on the server; the validation report flags it. The LizPack Publisher extension also sends the project and its data from QGIS.

Moving a GeoPackage into the database

An uploaded GeoPackage can be loaded into the instance's database. Select it, then click the database icon in the toolbar, or choose Transfer to the database in the right-click menu. This transfer is reserved for the Pro plan and above.

  1. In the Transfer to the database window, choose the Destination schema among the instance's schemas.
  2. The GeoPackage's layers are compared with the schema. New ones will be imported. For a layer already present, tick Tronquer et remplacer if its current data should be erased and replaced; otherwise it is skipped.
  3. Click Transfer.

The transfer goes on on the server: you can close the window without interrupting it. A message gives the outcome: layers imported, replaced and skipped.