A few days ago I tried to use Uploadify in Magento, but it failed because of jQuery noConflict, so I decided to try Magento’s default uploader, the Flex Uploader.

I couldn’t find a good documentation or tutorial about it, so I did a little research.

In the template you should put:

<?php $htmlId = "someHtmlId"; ?>
 <div id="<?php echo $htmlId ?>" class="uploader">
     <div class="buttons">
        <div id="<?php echo $htmlId ?>-install-flash" style="display:none">
            <?php echo Mage::helper('media')->__('This content requires last version of Adobe Flash Player. <a href="%s">Get Flash</a>', 'http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash/') ?>
        </div>
     </div>
     <div class="clear"></div>
     <div id="<?php echo $htmlId ?>-template" class="no-display">
         <div id="{{id}}" class="file-row">
             <span class="file-info">{{name}} ({{size}})</span>
             <span class="delete-button"><button id="{{id}}-delete" title="<?php echo $this->__("Delete")?>" type="button" class="scalable delete" onclick="uploader.removeFile('{{fileId}}')" style=""><span><span><span><?php echo $this->__("Delete") ?></span></span></span></button></span>
             <span class="progress-text"></span>
             <div class="clear"></div>
         </div>
     </div>
     <div id="<?php echo $htmlId ?>-template-progress" class="no-display">
         {{percent}}% {{uploaded}} / {{total}}
     </div>
 </div>

Practically this will be the place where the uploader will show you the progress of the upload. You will also need to place a javascript code which should look like:

    var uploader = new Flex.Uploader('<?php echo $htmlId ?>', '<?php echo $this->getSkinUrl('media/uploader.swf') ?>', <?php echo $this->getConfigJson('some_parameter_for_you') ?>);
    uploader.onFilesComplete = function(completedFiles)
    {
        completedFiles.each(function(file)
            {
                doSomethingWithTheResponse(file.response);
                uploader.removeFile(file.id);
            }
        );
        MediabrowserInstance.handleUploadComplete();
    }
    // hide flash buttons
    if ($('<?php echo $htmlId ?>-flash') != undefined)
    {
        $('<?php echo $htmlId ?>-flash').setStyle({float:'left'});
    }
//specify maximum file upload size (very important!)
    var maxUploadFileSizeInBytes = 10 * 1024 * 1024;
    var maxUploadFileSize = '10M';

Attention! $ is Prototype (not jQuery) in the example above.

We will need to configure the Flex uploader in the block class of the template file:

    public function getConfigJson($field)
    {
        $this->getConfig()->setParams(
            array(
                'form_key' => $this->getFormKey(),
                "field" => $field
            )
        );
        $this->getConfig()->setFileField('Filedata');
        $this->getConfig()->setUrl(Mage::getModel('adminhtml/url')->addSessionParam()->getUrl("*/*/upload", array("param1" => "value1")));
        $this->getConfig()->setFilters(array(
            'pdf documents' => array(
                'label' => Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('Portable Document Format (.pdf)'),
                'files' => array('*.pdf')
            )
        ));
        return Mage::helper('core')->jsonEncode($this->getConfig()->getData());
    }     

    public function getConfig()
    {
        if(is_null($this->_config)) {
            $this->_config = new Varien_Object();
        }

        return $this->_config;
    }

You can specify multiple file filters with the setFilters method, not just one as in my example. Also, with the setUrl method you will set the target URL, which will do the processing of the upload. In my example I set it as */*/upload. This means that in the controller of the current page you will have to set something similar to this:

    public function uploadAction()
    {
        if (!empty($_FILES))
        {
            $result = array();
            try
            {
                $uploader = new Varien_File_Uploader("Filedata");
                $uploader->setAllowRenameFiles(true);

                $uploader->setFilesDispersion(false);
                $uploader->setAllowCreateFolders(true);

                $path = "put_your_path_to_save_here";//ex. Mage::getBaseDir('base') . DS ."my_uploads" . DS

                $uploader->setAllowedExtensions(array('pdf')); //server-side validation of extension
                $uploadSaveResult = $uploader->save($path, $_FILES['Filedata']['name']);

                $result = $uploadSaveResult['file'];
            }
            catch(Exception $e)
            {
                $result = array(
                    "error" => $e->getMessage(),
                    "errorCode" => $e->getCode(),
                    "status" => "error"
                );
            }             
            $this->getResponse()->setBody(Mage::helper('core')->jsonEncode($result));
        }
    }

Don’t forget to load the required javascript libraries. You can do it in your layout xml file:

   <your_layout>
        <reference name="head">
            <action method="addJs">
                <js>lib/flex.js</js>
            </action>
            <action method="addJs">
                <js>lib/FABridge.js</js>
            </action>
            <action method="addJs">
                <js>mage/adminhtml/flexuploader.js</js>
            </action>
        </reference>
   </your_layout>
   

That’s all folks!