Linking to PDFs

[Mystic Lemur]

Hi. I can already create links to d20pfsrd.com and to PDF files on the internet, is there something about this that I'm missing? Is it just that people are wanting it to show up as an object like Hero Lab portfolios or PDFs that you add into Realm Works?

[rob]

Originally Posted by Mystic Lemur

Hi. I can already create links to d20pfsrd.com and to PDF files on the internet, is there something about this that I'm missing? Is it just that people are wanting it to show up as an object like Hero Lab portfolios or PDFs that you add into Realm Works?

Yep. In addition, once we add it into Realm Works, we'll be able to do smart caching of the material as well, so we can download it once and keep re-using it locally until it changes remotely.

[Erdrix]

Originally Posted by Mystic Lemur

Hi. I can already create links to d20pfsrd.com and to PDF files on the internet, is there something about this that I'm missing? Is it just that people are wanting it to show up as an object like Hero Lab portfolios or PDFs that you add into Realm Works?

What I'm asking is the ability to link to PDFs on your hard drive without importing the entire PDF into RW.

[Mystic Lemur]

Originally Posted by Erdrix

What I'm asking is the ability to link to PDFs on your hard drive without importing the entire PDF into RW.

Aye. My response was more directed at woobyluv and Giorgio. I think the issue with your request is that every device you use the realm on would have to either have the same document in the exact same directory for the linking to work. Either that or they would all have to have network access to your computer where the document is hosted. In both cases it seems much easier to just let LWD host the file on their servers.

[Erdrix]

The problem with allowing RW to host them is that most of my PDFs are over 30mb and that would be a lot of bloat to take up room on the server.

In my case, I only use RW on one computer so I wouldn't have the directory issue. Plus if you use to separate machines often, it wouldn't be that hard to put the PDFs in matching directories.

[KefkaZ]

Very +1!

[rob]

Originally Posted by Erdrix

The problem with allowing RW to host them is that most of my PDFs are over 30mb and that would be a lot of bloat to take up room on the server.

In my case, I only use RW on one computer so I wouldn't have the directory issue. Plus if you use to separate machines often, it wouldn't be that hard to put the PDFs in matching directories.

A large percentage of users will be leveraging multiple computers, and many users will find it annoying or problematic to put the same document in the same location. So optimizing something for a small subset of users makes no sense for all the other users that are left in the cold.

By supporting a URL, you can place the PDFs anywhere you want where they can be downloaded via a URL. Then Realm Works will download and store them locally, just like a web browser. With this approach, everyone can keep large files like PDFs out of the Realm Works cloud storage and keep their utilization down. And with tools like SkyDrive and Google, it's easy to put large files into the cloud for economical storage that can typically be retrieved via a URL.

[KefkaZ]

Erm... Yep.

[Erdrix]

Originally Posted by rob

A large percentage of users will be leveraging multiple computers, and many users will find it annoying or problematic to put the same document in the same location. So optimizing something for a small subset of users makes no sense for all the other users that are left in the cold.

By supporting a URL, you can place the PDFs anywhere you want where they can be downloaded via a URL. Then Realm Works will download and store them locally, just like a web browser. With this approach, everyone can keep large files like PDFs out of the Realm Works cloud storage and keep their utilization down. And with tools like SkyDrive and Google, it's easy to put large files into the cloud for economical storage that can typically be retrieved via a URL.

I must be missing something, I placed a pdf in my dropbox folder and copied the public link. I went to RW, put in a html snippet and then tried to add the link. RW is looking for a file, so I assume it wants a saved version of the link. So I open the link in my browser and starts downloading the whole 100+ pdf and gives me no option to save the link as a file and dragging the icon next to the url to the desktop doesn't work.

I guess it may not let me save the link until the pdf is completely down loaded, I assume RW will want to redownload it again if I ever manage to save the link to the desktop.

How is this less frustrating than placing my pdfs in c:/mypdfs and then linking directly to the pdf? Assuming that I'm not trying to this the wrong way.

[davidp]

To include a link currently, paste the URL as text into a snippet. It will then be auto-converted to a hyperlink that you can click on to trigger the download externally.

In the future, we plan on having a new type of snippet that will keep the link and also cache the file locally so the first time, it has to download the file, but after that, it could load it up from the local cache.