Suggestion: "Upload from link"

[Edszx]

Currently, if we upload a media file that chrome can play (webm, mp4, mp3, ogg, opus) Riot invokes a media player in the message along with the file download link, can we have something like this but for pasted links from the net? (im not even talking about youtube links, but links that directly go to media files like example.com/song.opus)

[t3chguy]

This would expose your IP Address to the host and thus is considered unsafe, the only other way would be for Synapse to download it on your behalf which would probably not be instantaneous.

[Edszx]

Uploading files from links (possibly with a server-side configurable size limit to prevent abuse) sounds like a very good idea too.

[t3chguy]

another issue stems from this automatic upload, the file might not be loadable by Javascript due to CORS

[Edszx]

In that case, the client couldn't just give us an error message saying that it can't download the file?
Also, with this second idea, im no longer talking about making the cross-upload automatic when the link is sent to the chatroom, now im talking about maybe adding the option to "upload from link" to the current "upload file" button.

[t3chguy]

@Edszx I like the upload from link idea, but it might still hit CORS issues

[t3chguy]

(unless server accepted a link and downloaded it itself, but that'd require protocol changes)

[turt2live]

fwiw, youtube embeds are covered here: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/3466

[Edszx]

@turt2live Yep, i saw that issue some days ago, but this situation is not the same, nevertheless, both things would be very good additions, i hope the devs could consider them for when they feel like it.

[ShadowJonathan]

Related; discord obscures linked media by embedding it as if it was any normal uploaded media.

This isnt maybe an approach Element would have to take (due to security concerns), but at least maybe providing the option to "download the link, and then upload it" for power users, with a similar "simple" mechanism of copying a media link whole-sale into the composer, would be interesting.

[MadLittleMods]

Related to element-hq/element-web#437