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
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 trying to link directly to a Google Drive file that is publicly available with (anyone, and reader) set as permissions and with no value set. This should make the doc publicly available on the internet.
The link I'm using to access the file is:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=FILD-ID&usp=sharing
The problem is this link takes the user to a listing of the file which requires another click to preview it.
How do I link directly to the previewer in Google Drive?
Using js file picker to select PDF files from Google Drive.
I'm encountering an instance when the downloadUrl is undefined.
I don't understand what can cause this.
I know downloadUrl can be empty for native Google formats, but these are PDF files.
I'd like to know what scenarios (except native Google formats) can cause an empty downloadUrl.
Thanks
You should use the Drive API to fetch the picked files' metadata in order to retrieve the downloadUrl. https://developers.google.com/drive/v2/reference/files/get
Native Google formats can be downloaded (converted and downloaded) via their exportLinks: https://developers.google.com/drive/v2/reference/files#exportLinks
The response I was receiving was 403.
And the scenario was user accessing "work" Drive (Google Drive for your domain)
Turns out Google Drive for your domain Administrators can restrict the permission to install third party apps.
https://support.google.com/a/answer/6105699?hl=en
User will still be able to allow access for the app and select files. Its just going to fail every time with a 403. Very confusing UX.
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.
If you remember, I'm trying to integrate Google Drive within our website, which is built on Elgg. Elgg already has its native file management system.
What we would like to do is to copy a file from Drive to our server, you know, kind of : Send to My Files. The problem is that I don't see any URL in the file metadata indicating where the file is physically stored.
I can see the copy function in Google Drive SDK but I don't think it allows to copy the file on our own server. Unless I've read it wrong.
Can you help me?
Thanks you.
If you are trying to save a file that has content stored in drive (e.g an image, pdf, etc.), the file's metadata should contain a downloadUrl that can be used to retrieve the file's content through an authorized GET request.
For Google Documents (Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, etc.), the data is stored in a private format that cannot be understand by third party applications. In this case, your app will have to use one of the exposed exportLinks to export the document into a format understood by your application.