Drag and drop URLs of files to other MacOS apps

[StevoVienna]

Hi, 

we want do use dropbox as an alternative for our current DAM and so we must be able to drag and drop image files from dropbox into Affinity Designer, Publisher or Photo.

This way the files stay connected with their web-source, if a certain key (ctrl) is hit in Affinity while dragging the images from Safari. It works great with websites and their images (i.e. resulting in a path like https://static.agravity.io/af6827b1d-080b-4f76-9b1f-5ee91cf12514/p3a350b8a-076f-4b1b-bdc2-9f2035c54c...), but not from Dropbox. Here the result comes as an error like i.e. 

"https://previews.dropbox.com/p/thumb/ACUiEmcmtP9lV0Lkv0cbOcemd_8sBc9L_V4Fy8uCAYb66ACWnhyPezUrxGbhHf7...". 

This is strange. How can we drag and drop assets with actual URLs from Dropbox to other MacOS apps to keep them linked?

[Jay]

Hi @StevoVienna, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Are you essentially trying to have the raw image or file linked as a preview from the Dropbox site, into another program?

Have you tried using shared links, and forcing the file to render by changing the dl=0 to raw=1?

This will help me to assist further!

[StevoVienna]

Hi Jay,

shared links wont do the trick, as the file has to be dragged onto the other apps canvas. There is no URL-import-field in most MacOS desktop publishing apps. Depending on the actual resolution visible in Dropbox the placed file would then be production ready or just a preview.

So the drag and drop-way to place the file is the only way applicable to Affinity and other DTP-apps. 

any other idea?

[Walter]

Have you tried downloading the file and dragging it from your computer directly @StevoVienna?

When you do it from the website, it seems that you're copying the preview of the file (as it would show on our website from a logged-in state) instead of the actual file.

[Kevin DBX]

@StevoVienna The issue you're running into is that unlike agravity.io (and other DAMs?), Dropbox is setup to be more focused on securing your files, than enabling interaction of them with other applications. The previews.dropbox.com... file URLs you're seeing and dragging are going to generate errors in other applications because those applications don't have the proper authorization to access the files. You can test this yourself by opening an incognito browser window and attempting to drag the image there and will see that it won't load because you aren't signed in to Dropbox.

Unfortunately @Jay is correct, and the only way to do this is by using the "raw=1" param on the URL. You can manually do this by generating a sharing link, replacing "dl=0" with "raw=1", and then dragging that image into your app and you should have no issues opening the file.

I've included a quick video to show you what I'm talking about where I drag the image into an incognito window:

https://capture.dropbox.com/Jwkk9lCtk0XwvDTU

I understand this may not be an ideal workflow for you, but hopefully will accomplish what you're trying to do.

[StevoVienna]

This for sure works, but I need the URL based connection to the source file – without this a DAM makes no sense. We use CI-Hub for Adobe InDesign and this would do the trick perfectly well, but we moved ahead earlier to Affinity DTP apps which are not compatible with CI-Hub. So as we kick out InDesign we need a URL based asset solution. 

[StevoVienna]

Hi Kevin, 

thx for your input – as the capture link wont let me access the content, I only can reply based on your message. Yes, ur right, manually altering links and URLs is not a convenient way when using hundreds of DAM assets each day for publishing. So I suppose dropbox can't offer the service we need 😕

[Jay]

Unfortunately, the way Dropbox is set up wouldn't be suitable for what you want to do with your workflow. We appreciate your feedback on this matter.