Even applications like ws-ftp and the like still only upload one file at a time. They just queue up a list of the selected files.
I don’t quite understand the issue of browsing to the files and then having a single upload. The users will need to select the files regardless of what method you choose, correct? I can’t believe that you would want an intuitive enough program that would “Discover” what files to upload, therefore the user will need to select them.
I realize that the link provided above was not the “BEST” way to select the files (One at a time and then a single submit), but I believe it to be a better option than multiple “FILE” fields and multiple “BROWSE” buttons.
I did not look deep at that code, but I suspect you could use a method to “Browse” and “Select” an entire folder my modifying that code by making use of something like Javascript or perhaps a custom ActiveX control.
Also have you looked at ftp_put? http://php.net/ftp_put and the entire ftp library on php? http://us2.php.net/ftp This may help as well.
Everything I have read tells me that PHP does NOT allow for MULTIPLE file uploads (similar to an mput) . The best is doing a “Loop” of a list of files (as a single put multiple times).
As a final note and possible solution, have you considered just using I.E. and normal FTP? It is possible to use I.E. as an FTP Client. Just navigate to the appropriate website ftp://mydomain.com and (if required) you could/would enter your appropriate credentials. It’s then a matter of drag and drop (or copy and paste). I have tried this and it does work (With I.E. not Firefox).
This does leave the door open (so to speak) because FTP is generally not a very safe protocol, but if you have it opened for ftp anyway, this might be a simple® solution.