I have a collection of PDF files on a Google Drive. I have shared them and I want to be able to link to them from a list on a web site. What I'd like to be able to do is work out the file name of the PDF using information in the list. As a simple example, if my list contains items 1, 2 and 3 I'd like to be able to upload PDF files 1.PDF 2.PDF and 3.PDF to Google Drive then have the web site just link to those when a link is clicked and show the PDF files in the browser.
So, I guess I could do this just by uploading the PDF to Google Drive and manually adding a link to PDF on the web site. However, what I want to do is generate the link programmatically so that when I have, say, 50 PDF files I don't have to keep getting the link from Google Drive and adding it to the web site. The site should just work out that item 50, say, in the list will link to 50.PDF, for example.
I've tried to get the file id using the API but that requires the authorization token to be generated and manual intervention to take place, so that won't work. At least, not at the point where the file is viewed because the viewer is anonymous.
So my questions are:
Is it possible to work out what a file name will be on the drive using just something like an item number in a list?
I guess that there are maybe some other options - for example, when I add the items to the list on the web site programmatically, I could go and locate the google drive file manually using a web application and link it using the file id at that point. I could store the ID in a database - however, would any anonymous user then be able to just click on the file link on the web site and view the file?
Finally, can anyone think of another way to do this?
Any help would be appreciated! :)
Is it possible for you to use a service account? You can authorize the app with an account dedicated to your app and user doesn't need to authorize and authenticate. The files you will be uploading will be managed under the service account's Drive.
You can learn more about service accounts on https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2ServiceAccount
If you have implementation specific questions, please ask.
Related
I know it is possible to get a link that will initiate a download of a file from Google Drive. But this is not exactly what I am looking for. I want to be able to have the link of a file with its extension.
For example, it is possible to do this with Dropbox. I am able to get a direct link if I change "www.dropbox.com" to "dl.dropboxusercontent.com". So if I have a video file, it will play on the browser's player instead of opening the page to download it.
With Google Drive I don't know how to do this. If I generate a direct link, it will then create a link that automatically starts a download. A direct link for a .txt file will not be rendered on the browser. It will be downloaded instead.
So, it is possible to have a direct link to a file in Google Drive that is not the direct link that starts downloading automatically, but instead with the directory/file.ext?
There are several things you need to understand about how the Google drive api works.
When you do a file.get with the Google Drive api it returns a file resource this is the response for the file itself. The information about it that google is willing to share with us. There are two fields here you may find interesting
The first thing you should know is that a file has one or the other of these links not both. If the file is a binary type for example an image you will be given a webContentLink which can be used to download the file, If its say a google sheet then you will be given a webViewLink which can be used to view the file in Google Drive web application.
Which link you get depends entirely upon the type of file it is. No matter which link you get you will still need to have permission to access this file. So whoever clicks the link must have at the very least read permission to the file.
On the Google drive web application we can create links which can be shared with anyone and allow anyone to "access" there is no way to create these links VIA the api.
What you wish to do is out of scope for the Google drive api, probably due to security reasons. Also the simple fact that google drive api is not a file service api it a file storage system. THere is a difference.
I'm new to the Google APIs, and would like to write a small service class for my web application that:
creates blank Google document without user assistance
assigns a generated title
returns a URL that can be provided to multiple people to edit this document
This document mst be editable via a sharing link. Ideally it is owned/managed as part of the web service's Drive storage.
Code is welcome if it's easier than explaining, but I'm really asking for help understanding Google's service offering.
Can I fully authenticate using only credentials specific to my app? (e.g. call the Drive API without prompting an interloper/observer/user to
authenticate.)
Once authenticated, can I create documents local to my
API?
Whose quota are the created documents consuming, the person that created the API key?
Can I share
these created documents with others?
Will I be able to manage a list of
these created file URLs from a standard Google web UI?
Just to clarify what it is that you are asking. You want to be able to embed a google doc on your website A couple things that can happen here.
First, you will need to create a google doc, lets say a spreadsheet. Within that spreadsheet you will:
click File > Publish to the Web.
From here a new window will be brought up. Click Embed and Published content and settings and click the publish button. Ensure the Automatically republish when changes are made checkbox. (this will allow for your website to be automatically updated anytime that doc is changed.
Take the embedded link that is generated and plop it in your webpage and it will be live.
Now you can share the page via Google Docs and anyone that has that link can make changes to that spreadsheet. As soon as a change is made, it will update on your website with the next refresh.
Hope this is all clear, let me know if there is anything unclear.
Cheers
I'm working on a system for our customers (400+ web sites) which allow their customer to upload a file on their web page. So, to clear up that muddy description, our customer is CustomerA and customerA's customer is CustomerB. CustomerA will have a webpage that has a javascript link in it that points back to our servers. That javascript uses angularjs to inject some functionality into their (CustomerA) page. Part of that functionality is allowing customerB to upload files to customerA (actually it gets posted to our REST api and we deliver the file to customerA). Dropbox offers a quick and simple way to integrate this via their dropin javascript. I have that up and running and it was a breeze to set up.
So now I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to allow customerB who has a google drive account to click a button on customerA's site (via the angular injected code) that loads a popup window with their drive contents so they can select a file to upload/share. The way that dropbox does it is that when a user selects a file, I'm given a url to the file that expires after 4 hours. Is there something like this with the google drive sdk? Everything that I'm seeing/reading sounds like it's geared toward writing an app that integrates within google drive rather than google drive integrating with a web page. I also watched the quickstart video and learned how to set up an oauth app, but it looks like I have to register every domain for our customers that could be using our system - ugghh. Is that right? Thanks.
Can a google drive application generate a preview for a file (which is not handled by google drive by default) when a file of that type is uploaded by the user, rather than creating it using that application?(Assuming the user has authorized that application)
Unfortunately, no, sorry.
The closest we have is being able to generate a third party thumbnail for a file. Your app can decide how the file will appear in the Google Drive thumbnail view by uploading the necessary image(s).
The video here explains it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG5-9zlaPL8
Good day! I am currently developing a website using Google Drive API. However, I am wondering if is it possible to know if a certain file is created/uploaded/shared by the project using an App Id. I was thinking if it is belong to the attributes of a file. But, when i checked, it seems that, there's no such thing.
What I am trying to do, is to filter the files' shared by the other user to the owner of the account using my web site. Is it possible? Any suggestions on how to do it?
Thank you in advance.
File metadata doesn't contain this information unfortunatelly, therefore you can't know if some file was created by your app or not. But FYI Google store it somewhere, if you will try to upload somefile without providing its content type (* / *) and after that try to open this file through browser you will see the message:
No preview available
This item was created with YourAppName, a Google Drive app.
Download this file or use one of the apps you have installed to open it.