I would like to know whether its possible to look up to files and folders stored in box with the path of it like in dropbox. Retrieving id of the files or folders we want to access/manage seems like an overhead. Any help would be appreciated.
It is not possible to access Box files and folders by path. The file/folder ID is returned to you when the item is created and it does not change over time, so you might consider saving the ID if the file/folder will be frequently accessed.
Box is not unique in this regard. Here's a useful comparison of how several major storage services handle file/folder identification (among other things).
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We would like access to a client’s folder within their Google Drive and all files under that folder. This can either be a folder we create from the app or a folder the client picks.
The first approach I tried was to create the folder from the app.
The problem is that I am only able to list the folder itself, but NONE of the content. https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/folder
The second approach was to use the Google Picker API. There the
client can choose which folder(s) to give us access to. However we
can only get access to the folder, and none of the children
folders/files. https://developers.google.com/picker/docs
This seemed like an easy and straightforward use case. But can’t seem to find a solution in their documentation, or maybe I don’t comprehend some of the logic. A solution would be a way to either propagate the permission to all the files included in the folder it get’s picked or created… or to have the picker select all the children.
My preference is to continue with the Recommended scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file . And it might be that the folder contains thousands of individual files multiple levels in, so it’s not a solution to manually pick the files. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
A possible solution for your situation...
Is to create the folder in a shared drive.
Therefore, even though new files are added/updated/removed you will still be able to see all the updates and retrieve the information needed as you will have constant access to this folder.
Another solution which is more cumbersome...
Is to ask for user's permission and to re-authorize the application each time they are using it so in the case a new file is added you will have access to it.
Reference
Drive API v3 shared drives;
Drive API v3 manage shared drives.
The first approach I tried was to create the folder from the app. The problem is that I am only able to list the folder itself, but NONE of the content. https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/folder
The issue is probably the scope you authorized the user with. If you authorized with read only access your not going to be able to create you need full drive access to do that.
If you are using https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file then you should create a folder with that and then create a file in the folder that i believe should work.
The second approach was to use the Google Picker API. There the client can choose which folder(s) to give us access to. However we can only get access to the folder, and none of the children folders/files. https://developers.google.com/picker/docs
There is no way to request access for a single folder or files. Its all or nothing really unless you use the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file scope which would only give you access to the files that your application created.
I would like to write a duplicate file removing program, but don't see a way to compare files' binary without first downloading the file. I would like the software to run on the server and allow other people to use it as well.
Any advice on doing this is appreciated.
You first need to define "duplicate" in the context of the Google Drive file system. Eg. Do you consider them to be duplicates if the title is the same, or if the content is the same.
In either case, you'll need to fetch the metadata for each of your files, then look for duplicate title or md5sum only for non-Google documents.
Is there any way that I can find all subdirectories for one link? Should I get the permission? For example, in the lecture instructor opened the solutions by entering some keywords after www.site.com/keyword. Now I cannot remember the word, whatever I try, I cannot find, but I know there is a file. That's why I want to see the files, other pages for the link.
The only way to find out what resources are available on an HTTP server is to request a resource that tells you. There isn't anything particularly standard about web servers that will provide that, so you'll need to do something specific to the webserver you want the details from.
Note that not all servers will provide something like this.
The closest thing to a standard is that most servers, for a URL that maps on to a directory on their file system, if there isn't an index file in that directory, will generate an HTML document containing a list of links to the resources in that directory.
I am familiar with the regular properties APIs for storing app-specific metadata to a file, but is there any way I can store App metadata within drive without linking it to a specific file?
I would prefer to store some configuration settings, but the only approach I've seen for this so far has been to create an actual file in GDrive (and hope the user doesn't delete it).
Is there a more stable approach?
You can store a configuration in you Application Data Folder on Google Drive.
More infos in the actual documentations, but a quick explanation is that you can store files in an hidden folder visible only by your application (any application using the same api key share the same AppData folder).
For example I store a text file with the settings of an Android application, when the user installs it on a different device, the settings are downloaded to the new device.
The approach using a file to store settings let you keep track of the changes made on the configuration by using versions, but if you are more keen to use properties, you can still create an empty app.config file and store properties on it.
I'm aware of shortcut links. Looking for behavior similar to that of a native Google doc. File exists, possibly takes up storage, can be renamed/moved/deleted, but the data inside shouldn't be modified except by the app. Possibly, defining export formats/links.
I believe the answer is a simple "no" - Google Drive is for storing user files, not protected application data or configuration data. So you could put a file to a users drive, but only the owner of the drive can control whether the file is shared or changed. So they can edit it, you can't stop them, and there's no reason to think that'll ever be a feature in the future.
To have such control you will need to store such data on your own server, or some other such storage medium.
The only other thing that you would do with only Google Drive is encrypt the configuration file you store, for instance, so it couldn't be easily edited - but that's probably just a bad idea. If you must save a configuration file to a persons drive, bury it inside an application folder and sanity check it to ensure it isn't corrupt - but don't count on a person or application never opening and editing it. If it's something a person shouldn't be able to read or change, don't save it to their drive.
As of April 2012, application data is supported: What is the Application Data folder?.
"Export format links" could be done with Custom file properties, though, I'm unsure of what kind datatypes are supported for the value beyond the example string.