Linking out to Images

[karinasanchez18]

Hi,

I am working with a researcher who wants to link out to images either in Google Drive or our institutional repository instead of uploading them via GitHub. I played around with Box, but that didn't work. Would Google Drive or an institutional repository work, or is it overall not possible to link out to images?

The main reason they want to do this is because they worry, they will run out of storage on GitHub.

[evanwill]

@karinasanchez18 yes and no!
Yes, you can use the full URL to an image or other file in the "object_location" or "filename" field in CB project metadata to use an externally hosted file. That is a very common practice for exactly for the reason you mention (since it isn't great to host a lot of files on GitHub)--some common options are discussed in the objects docs or in "filename" or "object_location" metadata sections.

However, no you can not use Google Drive or Box--those services do not have a public URL to serve the image directly (they specifically try to prevent you from using them as a file server). Where ever you host the image would need a URL that directly resolves to the image file. It may be possible from some institutional repositories.

For example, if I wanted to use this Farmland Values in Idaho document in our IR. For "image_thumb", I could right click on the thumb on the IR page and copy the direct image link https://verso.uidaho.edu/view/delivery/thumbnail/01ALLIANCE_UID/996822652801851 and paste that into the "image_thumb" column of my metadata (in CB-CSV). The for "object_location" (or "filename" in CB-GH), I could copy the link from the "Download" button on the IR page like https://verso.uidaho.edu/view/pdfCoverPage?instCode=01ALLIANCE_UID&filePid=13341557360001851&download=true. Even though the links look a bit odd, both those links resolve directly to a file so will work in a CB collection.