open attachment

There are ways to do this — though not necessarily via attachment; you’ll likely have to use a 'file:\\' URL after adding an extension/plugin to your browser. The following messages might be of assistance. (While they don’t directly address your issue, some of the approaches they suggest would be applicable.)

Yes, I too need this function: Open attachments in the default app I’ve designated in Windows.

For example, my firm uses a particular desktop program (Bluebeam) to annotate and collaborate with PDFs. We also do so with consultants who don’t use Airtable. I’m trying to get my team to adopt Airtable. Without a relatively seamless pathway from clicking on the attachment in the record to working on the PDF, Airtable will be perceived as too cumbersome, or “too clever by half” as some would say.

Any advice would be appreciated!

hello,
thanks for your response. It’s been a long time.
I can not start a file (.dwg). I have a 15-year drawings archive and want to make this transparent.
I can now show every project in Airtables except to open that drawing.
Can you help me?

I guess my first question is whether you can open .dwg files directly on your PC — that is, what happens if you click on a .dwg file saved to a local drive? If it’s not registered as a known file type with your OS, you won’t be able to open it from Airtable. (Filestack, the supplier of the API Airtable uses to manage uploads, supports conversion from a number of formats, but AutoCAD .dwg isn’t one of them.)

If you can open .dwg files, just not through Airtable, did you install the needed browser plugin or extension? By default, your browser cannot trigger an external application to open a web asset; this is for a bunch of very good reasons. This behavior cannot be changed for most (all?) major browsers except through an extension. Do any other file types you open from Airtable require an external program, or are the rest of the files in your library standard image formats?

If you can open .dwg files on your PC and you have a properly installed and configured extension active in your browser… I am at a loss. If this is the case, possibly additional detail about the failure may help someone diagnose the problem…

Take a look at the messages I highlighted in my earlier message to Ben. This is not a failure of Airtable, per se, but it is the intended and well-reasoned default behavior of all browsers. You can database and access local files in Airtable, but doing so requires you to modify this behavior by installing the appropriate browser plugin or extension. There are several available for most modern browsers; I recommend finding one that maintains a site ‘whitelist’ — that is, one that will only allow this behavior to be bypassed for sites explicitly added to the whitelist. This will allow the browser to continue to protect you as designed for all sites other than Airtable.

hello,
thanks for your reply.
i have Autocad and all drawings open in AutoCad. The os is Mac.
Where can I find the plugin or extension?

Is there a way to show only the folder in question, for example? So the Finder.
What I have already tried is to copy the whole path and put it as a link in Airtables. But that did not work.
All suggestions are welcome!

I’ll have to defer to someone more Mac-savvy than I am. (I know Airtable is Mac-based, so perhaps someone reading over my shoulder can help out. @Katherine_Duh? @Matt_Bush?)

I assume you can find a Safari plugin/extension to allow local files to be opened by a helper application. I would expect you’ll need to preface the URL with ‘file://’ followed by the path…