Feature: Add support for WebDAV network drives

[mwt]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I would like to be able to add Cloud Drives with a builtin FTP/WebDAV/... client like the various mobile file managers have.

Describe the solution you'd like
The ability to add cloud drives like WebDAV through the client natively. That is, these cloud drives would not be exposed to the system. Files would have its own builtin cloud storage client which would allow copying files to/from local folders. Solid Explorer is an example of a file manager which does this on Android.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I mount my cloud drives now via FUSE. It's not very fast, so I usually open WinSCP. I think a native client would be faster.

[mwt]

This is closely related to #1342

[yaira2]

@mwt Are you looking for the same thing as #2407?

[mwt]

Hi,

I was being more general than that request. I think that the ideal would be to write a general remote framework with the intention of providing FTP, SFTP, and WebDAV (the three main ones). Eventually, as the project evolves, it might be sensible to add support for Google Drive, Dropbox, and maybe even Backblaze or S3.

[Josh65-2201]

Asking @yaira2 for approval.

[yaira2]

Is this supported in other file managers? Trying to get a better idea on how it works.

[mwt]

Is this supported in other file managers? Trying to get a better idea on how it works.

It's common on mobile. For example, Solid Explorer on Android has this feature.

ChromeOS also has it in its file browsing app. It supports Google drive by default. SFTP can be added with a first party plugin, and several third party plugins can be used for FTP, WebDAV, and Onedrive.

Gnome kind of had this as well in the nautilus file browser. You can add cloud storages through settings. They do not mount as folders. You can just access the files through nautilus. I think thunarr supports webdav.

I think the Android and ChromeOS implementations are the best ones to model after.

[0x5bfa]

This got deprecated since November 2023.
For more information, visit https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/deprecated-features
Do we still want to support it?
Windows still provides built-in API for connecting, disconnecting. As it looks like an extended protocol of HTTP, the accessing path would start with 'htttp://' or UNC.

[yaira2]

It depends if there is still interest.

[mwt]

I'm still interested. WebDAV is still a common tool even if it's getting deprecated in Microsoft explorer.