Acccess to files only through app?

Question

I want to prohibit users from seeing a folder (folder_a) when
they log into iFS regular web interface, however, I want them to
be able to add/modify items in subdirectories of folder_a
through a custom app I am writng. Is this possible?
It seems to modify a document you must have read priviledges to
all the folders in the path of the document. So there is no way
to hide it in the iFS out-of-box interface.
So there is no way to hide documents in IFS so that only a
custom program can have access to them.

Answer 1

I do not recommend dynamically modifying the ACL to work around this issue, as proposed above.
First, for a custom app to modify a file, the user needs write access granted on the file only.
The user does not need to have access permissions to folders containing the document. Folders are just a way for the user
to browse to the file, but your custom application can allow the search to access the file via a Search or Selector. Once the
user has accessed the file, s/he can perform operations on the file according to the permissions granted in the file's ACL.
Make sure that your application doesn't reference files by their path, but instead by their ID. If the application tries to reference
a path that contains a folder that the user can't discover, the application will throw an error.