Download image from URL

[martine55225436]

Hi,

I need to download images from a webserver and have to display them on a catalog. This catalog should become a product catalog.

More info: The idea is that retailers can upload their product images on a webserver. An Indesign script should dynamically download these images and create a product catalog out of them. I'm currently stuck with coding the image download process. Is it possible in extendscript to download files given a URL?

Help is very appreciated.

[Jump_Over]

@Hi,

Take a look here:

Re: HTTP Upload file with Socket

I mean post with link to getURL.jsx

[Trevor:]

Rorohiko: GetURLs.jsx - access HTTP content from InDesign ExtendScript

[martine55225436]

Aren't there any easier solutions?

For example, I've found this solution: javascript - How to download an image from url to use in Photoshop scripting (ExtendScript Toolkit) ...

However, it doesn't work for me since app.system() seems not to be valid. Why?

[Laubender]

However, it doesn't work for me since app.system() seems not to be valid. Why?

What is your version of PhotoShop?

app.system() is working with e.g. PhotoShop CC 2017.

Just tested Fabian's line of code from Stack Overflow with PhotoShop CC 2017.

It's working. The png landed on my desktop.
Mac OSX 10.10.5.

Regards,
Uwe

[PS-Guru]

Would the be a way to download the image into memory from the URL and place it into an active document rather than save it to desktop? I have thousands of products that need to have dimensions added to. I read the dimensions from a CSV file using a script. I currently have to scrape the images using an excel macro but want to see if I can scrape the image using Photoshop Javascript. I'm using OS X.

[Laubender]

PS-Guru  wrote

Would the be a way to download the image into memory from the URL and place it into an active document rather than save it to desktop? …

Don't think so. Placing something has to be done with a file.

And it would be done best to a linked file.

Why would you like to bring in the images without linking them? It would only bloat the file size of the InDesign document. Perhaps up to a point wher you will not be able to open the document again when file size is a couple of gigabytes.

Regards,
Uwe

[Pickory]

Hi,

Download the image to a file, place the file, embed the file, remove file from disk.

P.

[Laubender]

Thank you very much for your provided link!

In the meanwhile I tested Fabian's PhotoShop script snippet with several versions of PhotoShop.
As I can see app.system() is working with all my installed PhotoShop versions from CS4 to CC 2017 on OSX.

With PhotoShop CS3 app.system() seems to be not available.

Don't know how this will work on a Windows machine.
The command curl used by Fabian ( cURL, Client for URLs or Curl URL Request Library) should be also available on Windows.

See: https://curl.haxx.se

So downloading images from the web using ExtendScript with InDesign to the local file system should be doable by using BridgeTalk to access PhotoShop from InDesign.

Regards,
Uwe

[martine55225436]

I'm using InDesign and not Photoshop. I think this is the reason why app.system() is not available.

[Laubender]

Yes. That's the reason. Are you on Windows or Mac OSX?

When on Mac OSX curl is built in and can be used with the terminal.
The terminal CLI can be reached by AppleScript. And the AppleScript can be executed by ExtendScript using method doScript() from InDesign.

Regards,
Uwe

[Trevor:]

See Re: Include remote .js-file in script-file (and use it's variables)

In particular post #21 and the gist files there.

Now one can also use curl on Windows 10 not just Mac.

One can curl to the temp folder, link to indesign, embed images and then delete from temp folder.

[Trevor:]

The best way of dealing with it would be using an extension that can download load the files asynchronously and when they are all downloaded the can be embed in the document. One could handle multiple documents and carry on working in indesign like that except for the interruptions for the linking and embedding.

[PS-Guru]

cURL worked great for me on OS X. The only issue is that until I added the delay, the script would crash because there was no file to place in the document. Now what happens on rare occasion is that a partial file get's placed and displays corrupted. This is because it had not finished downloading when it was imported.

I am going to work on writing a script that will check the file size twice and if different, wait 500ms and try again against the latest size. When the file sizes are the same, the file will be fully downloaded and ready to place in the document.

I apologize to all you InDesign folks that commented but embarrassingly I must confess, I appear to have dropped into the wrong thread. I am working in Photoshop. However, that being said, you guys knocked it out of the park and I resolved my issue! No, it's not loaded into "Memory" for placing but actually, it's not a problem. I have the files to replace the corrupted partial imports if needed.

For me, the question is Answered!

Here is what i am using at this time.

app.system("curl -o ~/Desktop/jpegs/Download_for_Dimensions/" + skuNumber + ".jpeg http://s7d6.scene7.com/is/image/domainName/" + skuNumber + "?qlt=100&printres=300&fmt=JPEG")  

    var filePath = new File(searchFolder + "/" + skuNumber + ".jpeg");  //Sets the path to the file to be placed in the current document.

$.sleep( 2000 ); /*Milliseconds*/

var checkFile = new File(filePath);

if (checkFile.exists) {

    alert(checkFile.size);

        placeEmbeded(filePath);

}

[Pickory]

This is very good.

GitHub - grefel/restix: REST InDesign Exchange or connect InDesign to the secure Web

P.