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A: Some, but not all.
Note: Most of the information in this article comes directly from our Chief Architect. Some of it may be fairly technical.
Certain pages and forms in Foundry are designed to hold attachments - either files or links - and display or download these when clicked. In certain forms, like experience and planning forms, you will often see a prompt to attach a file or a link, like this:
While Foundry will allow you to paste a hyperlink into most textboxes, we do not guarantee all links pasted this way will open properly. The preferred practice is to use the above feature.
Foundry users can also add links - including Google Drive links, if properly shared - to the Resources page. At this time, however, the Resources page does not support file attachments. Read more on managing Resources here.
File Type Testing
First, you decide whether something is a link or a file, and attach it accordingly. Then, Foundry determines what it actually is and displays or downloads it accordingly when clicked.
Link Testing
Whenever a link is entered, Foundry first attempts to detect whether it is an embedded YouTube link, as these are quite common; if not, the url will be modified to fit embedding in an iframe (this allows it to play like a YouTube video would).
Next, Foundry tests to see if it is a Google Drive link - whether an individual or group (drive/a) - and will create an embedded url that can be seen in an iframe. However, the Foundry display pop-up can neither prompt nor allow you to log into your Google drive.
| Important: Here, the end user must already have permission to open the drive folder/file, and the user must already be logged into the Google Drive domain. |
File Testing
Next are the displayable images and movies that are saved as files with their mime type. At present, the following file types will display in the viewer:
- gif, jpeg, png, tiff, svg, and ico image files
- html files
- webm video files
- mht or webpage archive files (this is not a live link)
At publish date, Foundry is still testing the following list. Likely, most of these can be supported by common browsers:
- mpg, mp4, and wmv video files
- wma and wav audio files
- ogg media files
Any other link will be directed to display in the browser, but several websites will refuse to display in a controlled iframe (like Foundry's display pop-up). We are working on extending those cases.
Other File Types
All files that are not of the above are directed to be treated by the browser for download. For security reasons, Foundry's new interface does not 'give up control' and let the object reload the browser tab with whatever was requested.
With respect to text files or code files, these will be displayable when we add mime types for the different file extensions and filter them to become "harmless" for the system. This is to prevent what developers term "code injection."
Most browsers and operating systems can open any downloaded file by their preferred application, but not every browser has the same level of configuration. For example, Chrome has no configuration for what to open, Safari allows you to select all safe types to open and just names a few it considers safe, Firefox allows you to define what to open, etc.
| Pro-tip: When you use a "http:" url in Foundry as an attachment, the browser will block the display of that attachment, so always use "https:." |
Summary
For convenience, Foundry recommends the following guidance for attaching the most common file types:
Video: the easiest method is to upload it to Google Drive or to YouTube or another hosting service and attach the link. Most video files will be downloaded, and local applications will open them.
Document: files uploaded to Google Drive and converted to Google docs, sheets, etc will display in the Foundry viewer as long as the user has permission to view the drive and is logged in. MS Word documents, for example, will download.
Image: most image files (see the above list) will display in the viewer.
PDF: support for PDF viewing is in development, but currently, attached PDF's will download to your desktop.
It is possible to have a very useful set of media in your Foundry experiences; however, please take care about what file types you attach, as it is possible to have a suboptimal set of media by expecting any object type to be displayed in the viewer.
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