What should it do? How should it behave?

Quite likely.

Did you configure it via the admin screens (dbfm)?

ensure your icons are in the right place (modules/dbfm/image/icon) or (sites/all/modules/dbfm/image/icon) whatever!

Check your dbfm_file table has an entry in it with a "fid" of 1 - and a sensible fname/fpath etc.

should look something like this:

mysql> select * from dbfm_file where fid=1;
+-----+-----+--------------+-------------+-------+-----------+--------+-------+---------------------+-------+----------+---------+---------------------+---------+------------+---------+---------+-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+---------------+----------+----------+--------+---------------------+------+
| fid | uid | fpath | fname | fsize | fmime | ftitle | fdesc | fcreatedate | flang | fversion | fnewver | flastmod | fparent | fimagesize | fimageh | fimagew | fdown | fauthor | fclass | fstatus | fkeywords | fdistribution | fwaccess | fraccess | fchild | fblobmod | fmd5 |
+-----+-----+--------------+-------------+-------+-----------+--------+-------+---------------------+-------+----------+---------+---------------------+---------+------------+---------+---------+-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+---------------+----------+----------+--------+---------------------+------+
| 1 | 1 | /eServGlobal | eServGlobal | 14 | directory | | NULL | 2007-08-01 19:31:21 | 0 | 0 | | 2008-03-27 18:21:44 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 | | 0 | NULL | NULL | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 | |
+-----+-----+--------------+-------------+-------+-----------+--------+-------+---------------------+-------+----------+---------+---------------------+---------+------------+---------+---------+-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+---------------+----------+----------+--------+---------------------+------+

administer dbfmgreybox and ensure that it's enabled for the following pages: "dbfm, node edit, node add"

M.

Note:

Requires: DAPI 5.x.1.0, DBFMgreybox 5.x.1.2, jstools 5.x.0.6 (doesn't work with other versions).

Once you have installed all of the above modules, you must go to the admin screen and SAVE the properties - additionally the initial / for the filesystem must be removed (or it will display as //dbfm).

You must also go to the admin screen for dbfmgreybox and SAVE the properties

Check out the online demo here:

http://dbfmdemo.lineageone.com/

and the online help here:

http://dbfmdemo.lineageone.com/sites/all/modules/dbfm/webhelp/index.html

installation tips here:

http://dbfmdemo.lineageone.com/node/4

Regarding configuring DBFM in admin/settings/dbfm:

There is incorrect information on this page:

1. Root directory: must NOT be preceded by a slash, when in fact the instructions on the page say that it MUST be preceded by a slash

2. Icon directory MUST be preceded by a slash because it is relative to $base_url and according to http://drupal.org/node/140714#comment-227688, base url should not contain a trailing slash (although it does say there that "Drupal will add it for you" so it's not clear for me what's going on and why a leading slash was necessary to fix the problem). This is a much worse issue than 1. as it is causing the problem described in http://drupal.org/node/232539 and renders DBFM unusable, even in a fresh out-of-the box Drupal (5.7) + DBFM installation.

The problem in 2. is that DBFM can not find it's icons directory, however I think a deeper issue is that DBFM is unable to operate without its icons. Is this by design? So what if icons are not found? All the links such as create new Dir or Add File were actually present on the DBFM page (see attached jpeg screenshot), but they did not work.

I think DBFM should be operational (at least to a bare minimum) even without the icons, using the text links.

1. This is probably a text error.

2. The "icons" directory lives inside the dbfm module directory itself - and is required for DBFM to function. Specify the URL like this:

/sites/all/modules/dbfm/icons

assuming that's where you've put them

See this information:

http://dbfmdemo.lineageone.com/node/4