Drag-and-drop file uploading without AJAX, synchronously in the foreground?

Question

I have a web site with a regular <input type="file"> file upload, POSTing the data to the backend when the form is submitted.

I would like to progressively enhance the form so that you can drop a file from outside the browser anywhere in the viewport (not just on the file input field, as built into some browsers) to upload it.

Whether or not the form autosubmits isn't important. So if the drag-and-drop only selects the file in the file field, without starting an upload, that's fine. I don't need support for multiple files. I don't need to show upload progress, thumbnails or anything fancy.

I know there are JS libs that support drag-and-drop uploads, but they all seem to upload via AJAX. I could do that, but then I would need to modify the backend and frontend to handle upload errors, redirect and show the right messages on success and so on.

I want a progressive enhancement that doesn't require any backend changes. It should happen synchronously using the form in the page. JS is fine, as long as the upload happens "in the foreground". Synchronous AJAX would not work, of course.

Answer 1

Although not really "synchronous" (JavaScript execution won't actually halt), you can set the files selected by <input type="file"> programatically. In fact, such elements and dragging share their file backend implementation (File and FileList instances), so it's really straight-forward. What's more, due to both frontends using FileLists, dragging multiple files work just as seamlessly.

This works in Chrome (using jQuery): http://jsfiddle.net/qMmPr/.

$(document).on("dragover drop", function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();  // allow dropping and don't navigate to file on drop
}).on("drop", function(e) {
    $("input[type='file']")
        .prop("files", e.originalEvent.dataTransfer.files)  // put files into element
        .closest("form")
          .submit();  // autosubmit as well
});