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New Data Type: Image URL

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Mike_Eovino
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

I’d love to see a new data type that takes the URL of an image file and renders the image rather than just displaying the URL as a link. I would think that this would save you some storage space as well by letting us link to hosted files rather than pulling them in as attachments.

52 Comments
John-Paul_Kerno
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Hi - would you have you a solution to doing this with a localhost address on my Mac? Like pulling the image from a location address like this into Airtable …

file://localhost/Volumes/IMAGES/NEWEST2017.bentodb/Contents/Resources/Assets/C443570-0032-468D-83BE-F13B93F2BC4B/P1060352.JPG

M_k
11 - Venus
11 - Venus

Hi

I am having a similar situation, although it might be the other way, sort of… I have an Airtable base for my postage stamp collection. I am now entering into the phase of deciding what is the best way to automatically insert URL’s (I am not really looking forward to doing this manually), since I have about 2,000 records to enter URL’s into the field, for website addresses, in my base. I should mention that I am using the free version on my iPads iOS 10 &11 and MacBook High Seirra 10.13.

The website is:
https://www.canadianpostagestamps.ca/canada

Then, from there the Integration/Zapier app would need to select a year the stamp was issued, in this case, there are some years that it’s just some of the stamps, but over the past 3 or 4 years, it will be pretty much all of them, i.e.:
https://www.canadianpostagestamps.ca/year/1937

Then the integration app would need to match up to the actual stamp that I need, which in this case is the link below, and it’s this page that I want the URL copied into the Airtable base (Website field):
https://www.canadianpostagestamps.ca/stamps/15568/h-m-george-vi-h-m-queen-elizabeth-canada-postage-s...

It appears that the 5 digit number (in the above link: 15568 is a unique number, in sequence, although there might be some missing numbers, but it’s still in numerical sequence, assigned to each stamp. The next stamp in order is: 15569, but the next one jumps to 15571. I don’t know if this helps, but I thought I should mention it.

If an integration app (Integromat or Zapier) will not be able to do this directly, then perhaps I could do this indirectly, by using Excel or Google Sheets to populate Airtable, Either, directly into my original base or in a separate base, preferably with an image, so than I can easily copy and paste the URL into the main stamp collection base, using the images as a guide to match to the record, or if any of the above processes used, it can match it directly to the record in the original base, that would be even better. I don’t need to copy the images, since I have a separate field for that purpose. The images (for matching only) would be in its own field in a temporary base or new table within the original base, and a second field would be created (next to the temporary images field) so all the URL’s will be copied or uploaded automatically into each record.

Or maybe I am asking for the moon. :slightly_smiling_face: ️

I only need the the temporary images that are connected with the URL’s for a visual guide, so I can match them correctly with the record in the main stamp collection base.

Also, please keep in mind that this process would be very new for me, so there might be a learning curve involved, but I like to learn new things.

I hope this makes sense.

Thank you.
MK

SDOK_Blog
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

HI.
I don’t think you can do it directly, because, as I know, airtable API doesn’t support URL uploads from a localhost.
The solution would be to upload all your images to a webhosting keeping all the names.
Then just add the web-hosting url to your image file names (for example for image_1.jpg it would be
https://webhostingexample.com/airtable-uploads/image_1.jpg). Or if you have the adress database of your images (like file://localhost/airtable-uploads/image_1.jpg), replace the file://localhost/ to https://webhostingexample.com/ . The replacement you can do easily with airtable formulas or google sheet.
After doing that, you can use the solution I showed in the video.

For webhosting you can use your own website hosting(if you have one), just create a new folder in it and upload all your images via ftp.
Basicly, this hosting will be just a temporary storage for your images, as airtable will upload them to it’s own server.

SDOK_Blog
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

I think you are looking for something like “importXML” function in google sheets. That can get all the needed data from your website. Then you could use the Google Sheets - Airtable integration at Integromat.com to match and upload all that data to airtable

M_k
11 - Venus
11 - Venus

Hi

I was doing some research about ImportXML, I am not quite sure how to write the argument for:

Screen%20Shot%202018-08-10%20%232

This is the website I got the code from, after I selected INSPECT:

https://www.canadianpostagestamps.ca/stamps/15568/h-m-george-vi-h-m-queen-elizabeth-canada-postage-s...

I did screenshots of the code, before the block of code, pasted above, and another screenshot just after the block of code.

I want the image of the stamp, in one column and the web address in another column.

Any help would be great.

Thank you,
MK

StepanDoktor
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

HI…
I made some inspection.

  1. Put your URL to A1 for example (A1=https://www.canadianpostagestamps.ca/stamps/15568/h-m-george-vi-h-m-queen-elizabeth-canada-postage-stamp);
  2. put the path //img[@class=“stamp-img”]/@src to A2.
  3. Put formula to A3 (=importxml(A1;A2);
    You will get your image URL.
    If you want to see the image, then there are 2 ways:
    1-st: A3=image(importxml(A1;A2));
    2-nd : B3=image(A3);

image

M_k
11 - Venus
11 - Venus

Hi 11144

Thank you for your help.

I tried it on the website, as it turned out, the webmaster who created the site, locked out anyone from using the images, here in Canada. I noticed that you were able to access the images, perhaps you live in another continent, so it might not affect your location. I will certainly use the steps that you provided for other websites, hopefully, I will have better luck. :blush:

Thank you,
MK

Jess_Sand
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Adding yet another +1 request for supporting thumbnail display of image URLs. Like previous posters, one of my use cases is managing a very large (14k+ records) table of image assets (in the archive/museum field). I’m not interested in hosting actual image files on AirTable servers, due to the quantity of records and likely performance issues.

While I get the concern for potential encroachment on AirTable’s business model, I’d venture to guess that more users are interested in paid tiers for the additional record limits, rather than attachment limits. Allowing for self-hosting of images with AirTable-displayed thumbs seems like it would be a win-win for AirTable and users.

Alba_Sterling
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi. Still no answers from Airtable to this request?

This is stopping our company from using Airtable to manage inventory.
Does anyone have any simpler solution besides the one suggested by [SDOK_Blog]?

Alex_Parks
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Fetching a pdf from a url automatically would be another use case that would vastly simplify our lives!