Apaxy

Apaxy is a customisable theme built to enhance the experience of browsing web directories. It uses the mod_autoindex Apache module—and some CSS—to override the default style of a directory listing.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Docker images
• Apaxy themes
• Mime Types
• Troubleshooting
• Credits

Features

Apaxy may be basic, but it gives you a great deal of creative freedom when styling your directory.

• Style your directory listing with CSS.
• Make it pop with Javascript or jQuery.
• Add welcome messages, download instructions or copyright notices.
• Add custom mime type icons (requires editing the .htaccess file)
• Use custom error pages.

Sadly, visual style is all you can work with. It's not possible to alter the generated table structure of the listing directory with Apaxy.

Installation

Apaxy requires an Apache(2.2.11+) enabled HTTP server.

Quick Start

If you would like, you can automate the installation of Apaxy with the included apaxy-configure.sh script.

To get started, first open apaxy.config in your favorite editor:

$ vim apaxy.config

Edit the WEB_ROOT and INSTALL_DIRECTORY variables to correspond to your server's settings, then save and exit.

Then run the configuration script as a user that can write to the install directory. With Apache, this would be the www-data user:

$ sudo -u www-data ./apaxy-configure.sh

The files will be copied to the web server directory, and modified automatically based on the settings specified.

Manual Install

Let's assume you have a folder named share in your server root directory (the path thus being http://mywebsite.com/share) that you'd like to use as your listing directory:

• Download and unzip Apaxy
• Copy and paste the contents of the /apaxy folder to your /share folder.
• Edit htaccess.txt (now in the /share folder) and update all instances of paths marked with {FOLDERNAME} to point to your site root.

So...

AddIcon {FOLDERNAME}/theme/icons/gif.png .gif

Should be changed to...

AddIcon /share/theme/icons/gif.png .gif

• Edit footer.html, along with all the other html documents (in the /share/theme folder) and update all instances of paths marked with {FOLDERNAME} to point to your site root.

So...

<script src={FOLDERNAME}/theme/apaxy.js></script>

Should be changed to...

<script src=/share/theme/apaxy.js></script>

• Once done, rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess in the /share directory.
• Treat yo'self, you're done.

Docker images

A local Demo can be started with docker. docker-compose build docker-compose up

Apaxy themes

If you'd like to alter the default Apaxy theme, look in the /theme folder and you'll find the following files:

• header.html
• footer.html
• style.css

Edit these as you would any other HTML or CSS file.

Adding your own icons is a little more involved. You'll need to edit the main Apaxy .htaccess file. Look for the following as an example:

AddIcon {FOLDERNAME}/theme/icons/gif.png .gif

The above rule will assign an icon named gif.png from the directory {FOLDERNAME}/theme/icons/ to any file with the .gif extension.

This URL path is relative to your site's root.

Mime Types

The default Apaxy theme /themes/apaxy has icons in place for the following mime types:

.aif .aif .asf .asx .avi .bin .c .css .csv .dmg .doc .docm .docx .dot .dotm .eps .flv .gif 
.htm .html .ico .iff .jar .jpeg .jpg .js .json .log .m3u .m4a .md .mid .mov .mp3 .mp4 .mpa 
.mpg .msg .mwa .odt .pages .pdf .pkg .png .ps .psd .ra .rar .rb .rm .rss .rtf .shtml 
.sql .srt .swf .tex .tiff .txt .vob .wav .wmv .wpd .wps .xhtml .xlam .xlr .xls .xlsm .xlsx 
.xltm .xltx .xml .zip

Troubleshooting

Make sure the options set in .htaccess files of Apaxy can actually be changed. This means that you need to allow to ovveride the used options in your apache configuration of the directory apaxy used with: AllowOverride Indexes

Find more information in the in the apache documentation.

Credits

Apaxy owes its existence to the amazing h5ai by Lars Jung. Had I not seen this, I would never have looked into making my own (probably way less useful) version.

Faenza Icons are used in the apaxy theme.