support images in libraries

[dwelle]

• library schema update
• investigate sanitization requirements
• encoding?

[dwelle]

I'm not super happy about encoding the images as base64 into the JSON library file.

Alternatives are keeping the files separate from the .excalidrawlib and zipping them into a single binary, or binary encoding the whole excalidrawlib file itself.

I wanted to investigate publishing two lib files anyway. One would be JSON .excalidrawlib and another would be .excalidrawlib.bin which would be the file we actually install from. Though one could make the argument that keeping the JSON file around would be redundant at that point.

[vramiro]

Hello @dwelle

I was just wondering if the support for SVG files in the library would be on this same issue or if a new one is needed.

[dwelle]

@vramiro SVGs for under this issue, yes

[rockssk]

Hi @dwelle

Just checking in to see if there is any progress on this item, Community will hugely benefit from adding images to the library, we have tools that can generate line drawn version of an icon, but publishing it as Excalidraw library is still an issue.

[tylernix]

Hi @dwelle

Any update on this? This is blocking me from using Excalidraw+ for my whole team for our virtual whiteboarding use case. We have a set of architectural icons (png & SVG) that we use during each whiteboard session and would really be helpful to add these to a personal library to reuse them.

[public-rant]

Long time user, first time poster.

I find myself both in need of this feature, as well as the time to work on it.

I realise this maybe isn't the best "good first issue" so please fogive me if I'm talking out of school.

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By "Investigate sanitisation requirements" are you hoping to guard against this sort of thing?

Regarding the implementation, would the intention be to use imageCache to create a zip file containing the scene data of the (selected?) elements, along with the associated image files?

I'm guessing the existing functionality - encoded images as dataURLs before adding them to the scene, etc. - could be left as it is while extending the library feature to allow for including images by refactoring the library feature to create a zip file (instead of JSON/excalidrawlib) using the imageCache as the source.

/cc @dwelle

[dwelle]

By "Investigate sanitisation requirements" are you hoping to guard against this sort of thing?

Yes.

Regarding the implementation, would the intention be to use imageCache to create a zip file containing the scene data of the (selected?) elements, along with the associated image files?

I'm guessing the existing functionality - encoded images as dataURLs before adding them to the scene, etc. - could be left as it is while extending the library feature to allow for including images by refactoring the library feature to create a zip file (instead of JSON/excalidrawlib) using the imageCache as the source.

The zip suggestion was mainly about use case, not implementation.

That said, it needs to account for all sorts of persistence models: browser (also moving from LS to IDB), library repository (database), filesystem (on export), host apps (make it extensible).

It's pretty much the same with canvas images, but the difference is that handling images separately is pretty annoying — as it already is with canvas images today. But with libraries, it'd be more so.

[inwardmovement]

Wouldn't it be "easy" to support SVGs in libraries, as they are "just code"?

[dtonda]

Support for SVG would be really appreciated as it's the best way to include product icons and architecture diagram examples in the libraries.