Whenever a website has an input field for specifying and uploading a local file, the browser also lets you specify a URL instead. The browser tricks the server that you're uploading a local file by downloading the URL destination bytes, then immediately forwarding the content to the page you are submitting. Benefit: no need to download a file locally that you aren't interested in keeping track of.
-- rhatta, Sep 16 2009

HB Question Category HB_20Question_20Category
A lot of people seeking answers these days... [Jinbish, Sep 17 2009]

Face animator http://labs.mppark.jp/hige/
[Dub, Sep 17 2009]

BIS Celeb Face http://images.googl...mgsz=m&imgtype=face
Pic a smallish file,
get the URI to the (jpg) image (<5Mb),
Click "Change"
paste URI [Dub, Sep 17 2009]

<Input type="file" > http://www.htmlcode...NPUT_TYPE_FILE.html
This is the scenario I was thinking of. An input field for specifying a local file. [rhatta, Sep 17 2009]

It would be better if this were done at the protocol level; the POST statement could contain a header to redirect the receiving server to do a download. Stupid to download and upload!
-- vincevincevince, Sep 16 2009


Some sites have a feature to allow a URL to be specified instead of a filename. The only way I can see a browser feature for that as being useful would be if the browser were connected to a proxy through a slow link and the proxy (which was connected to the net via faster link) could handle the exchange. For non-secure connections, that might allow things to operate more quickly, but I'm not sure how it should work with secure ones.
-- supercat, Sep 16 2009


Isn't this already baked in Windows using "Network Places"?
-- MisterQED, Sep 16 2009


@supercat: yes, some sites allow you to specify a URL. This idea is meant to be useful for sites that don't.

@MisterQEQ: that's unrelated...
-- rhatta, Sep 17 2009


Erm, If I understand correctly, I think this already works/baked (at least on XP). I did it in fact with a face animator (linky) and a picture of a celebrity I found on GIS. I think what happens is that XP downloads the file to a temp locaion on the local machine, then passes the file-spec to the site to upload.
Probably depends on the calling params of the "open file" method /func
-- Dub, Sep 17 2009


@Dub: Hmm, I'll give it a try once I get to a Windows machine. Do you just paste the URL into the File Chooser Dialog?
-- rhatta, Sep 17 2009


[rhatta] yup - URL of an image [http://vision.stanford.edu/ projects/OPTIMOL/ main/face.jpg]
-- Dub, Sep 17 2009


@Dub: Cool! Thanks for noticing it! I should check out Windows next time I post. Implemented rather unintuitively however, I would say. Couldn't do the same in OS X. 'Tis baked.
-- rhatta, Sep 18 2009


Yes, you're right, it doesn't work on OSX :(

[21 Quest] Who are you asking?
-- Dub, Sep 19 2009


feed the website a link to itself, so it just keeps downloading nested copies of itself over and over.
-- sninctown, Sep 20 2009


Ah
[sninctown] Nooooo! You'll break the internet!
Didn't you see "IT Crowd"?
-- Dub, Sep 20 2009


Since this exists on some sites, this is advocacy.

"I have seen it here but I want it everywhere"
-- miasere, Sep 21 2009


No, it isn't - not from the author's point of view. They're not a windows user and didn't know about the feature there; that just came out through the discussion here.
-- jutta, Sep 21 2009


This wouldn't just be 'advocacy' or 'consumer advice' if the idea were extended to have a proxy site that could handle such requests (e.g. a user with a slow connection accesses a site via proxy site filemoverproxy.com, which sees the 'INPUT_TYPE_FILE' field and allows a user to specify a URL; the proxy site than fetches the file and passes it on, without the file going over the user's slow link).
-- supercat, Sep 21 2009



random, halfbakery