NOT OF PRODUCTION QUALITY!

Google Drive File Link Management

A Google Drive application to manage file download and export links. Export options are supported for Google office suite documents.

Note: native Google office suite documents hereinafter referred to as the NGD.

Try it live

The Problem

When you share a link to a file located on Google Drive your vis-a-vis may face:

need to switch to a Google account in order to access NGD
inability to access NGD when vis-a-vis has got no Google account
take extra step to download other types of files as by default those are opened in a preview mode
inability to access any file if access permissions aren't set properly

You may also want to track access activities.

Solution
Features explained
Installation
Credits
Copyright
Resources

Solution

This tool integrates with Google Drive and offers:

convert-and-download direct links for native Google documents
direct download links for other types of files

The tool doesn't fetch files contents.

Features

Convert and download link for NGD
NGD gets converted to MSO document, pdf, or other types
Google Sheets pdf export can be tuned
Direct download link for other types
goo.gl url shortener embedded
access authorization shortcut

NGD export support

NGD file type	MSO	OpenDoc	html	rtf / epub	pdf	txt	csv / tsv	jpg / png / svg
Docs	docx	odt	`(1)`	+	+	+	-	-
Sheets	xlsx	ods	`(1)`	-	`(2)`	-	`(3)`	-
Slides	ppsx / pptx	odp	-	-	+	+	-	`(4)`
Drawings	-	-	-	-	+	-	-	+
Forms `(5)`	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Fusion Tables `(6)`	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Notes:

(1) - zipped web-page with media assets if any
(2) - customized pdf output available
(3) - available on per sheet basis and therefore from Sheets open context; see Google Sheets section below for details
(4) - available on per slide basis and therefore from Slides open context; see Google Slides section below for details
(5) - Google Forms download or export makes no sense, therefore only open link shortening offered
(6) - Google Fusion Tables is an experimental application and not supported yet

Native Google documents conversion MIME-types

Security

This app is based on the drive.file OAuth2 scope, where permission is granted only for individual files that the user authorizes.

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Features explained

Links

Long URLs

open - equivalent to shareable link available from Google Drive context menu. NGD are get opened with native google applications. Other files are get opened with Drive preview or associated application if any.
download - direct file download link. NGD can be exported in either of supported formats, so user is presented with a list of links.

goo.gl shortened links

When Google authorized user requests a short url via google URL shortener a new goo.gl id is being generated every time, which makes stats collection near senseless. This app generates goo.gl id for each type of targeted long URL only once and stores those in file description as a JSON document.

NB! The JSON preceded with LINKMAN= string is appended to the end of file description. However user can accidentally remove or corrupt the JSON, in which case new goo.gl ids will be generated.

File description gets updated only upon Save action or upon first access to a file.

Types of short URLs stored:

open : preview|NGD open
DL : download for non-NGD files

For NGD documents exporting urls are stored. MSO and pdf export urls are generated by default. Other types require manual activation.

NGD specifics

Google Sheets

Google Sheets pdf export can be customized.

Available settings are:

size = letter|A4|A3...
portrait = true|false
fitw = true|false
source = custom string
sheetnames = true|false
printtitle = true|false // optional headers and footers
pagenumbers = true|false
gridlines = true|false
fzr = true|false // frozen rows on each page
gid = sheet_Id // not , see remark below

NB! Per sheet exports (employing gid sheet id) available only from Sheets open context. Please, use ExportLink Google Script.

Short url for each set of export settings can be stored in the LINKMAN JSON.

pdf : [
        { settings : export settings,
          shortUrl : shortened url for given settings
        },
        ...
    ]

Google Slides

Export to images is supported on per slide basis and therefore is available only from Slides open context. Please, use ExportLink Google Script.

Google Forms

Exporting Google Forms makes no sense. Therefore only open link gets shortened.

Google Fusion Tables

Google Fusion Tables is an experimental application and not supported yet. It is most likely exporting those will not make much sense and therefore only open link shortening will be available.

If you feel it's time to start supporting Google Fusion Tables drop the author a note on that.

Supported file types

Registered MIME-types

text/*
application/*
image/*
video/*
audio/*

Supported MIME-types (target list)

text/plain
application/octet-stream
image/gif, image/png, image/jpeg, image/bmp, image/webp
video/webm, video/ogg, video/mp4
audio/mpeg, audio/webm, audio/ogg, audio/wav
application/vnd.mspowerpoint, 
application/xhtml+xml, application/xml
application/pdf

Registered file extensions

pdf, png, jpg, jpeg, 
ppt, pptx, doc, docx, xls, xlsx,

Reserved MIME-types (not targeted)

text/html, text/css, text/javascript
audio/midi

Native Google documents MIME-types

Access authorization shortcut

While this feature allows to grant "Anyone with the link can view (download) the file" powers it is recommended to grant access on per folder basis.

In either case consider possible negative consequences when granting any level of access.

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Installation

Chrome web-store

Install the application from Chrome web-store.

Customize the app

Clone and customize the script. The resulted app should have been hosted somewhere.

Options for hosting include Google App Engine, where a simple Python configuration provides an easy-to-use way to expose only static content (in this case, serving the JavaScript and html). Other alternatives include using a Google Drive public folder to host the files, or your own web server.

In all cases, a configuration will need to be created in the Google Developers Console, as outlined here.

Note: The resulting App ID, Client ID, and API Key generated as part of that process will need to be put into the your app's configuration (in actual code). For ZIP Extractor, that configuration information in found in config.js under the /js/linkman/ directory.

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