We have just published a new plugin
Easy File Downloader - very often we need to allow users to download certain files. Usually the way to do it in Bubble is to use “navigate to an external URL” workflow action providing the file URL to download. This is a feasible workaround but users see as a new tab is opening in their browser for the moment. Also, if the file to download is an image, audio or pdf then those files will simply open in a new tab without being downloaded. This plugin allows you to implement the file download feature with just one workflow action where you indicate the URL of the file that should be downloaded, be it an image or any other file.
You can also track the progress, by adding element event “when file downloaded”, that fires each time, the file becomes ready for download.
@levon is this specific to files stored within Bubbles own aws or can it apply externally hosted files? the reason being is that usually mousing over a link to download exposes the URL of the intended file…these do not. thanks
Files don’t seem to download as a result. After running some tests, I realized that the issue has to do with the url format as I recently switched to AWS s3 as a host.
Checked to confirm, and my urls already have https: in the link already. I thought maybe it had to do with the fact that the urls are signed and have a lot of data appended to the link, but I tried it with some other public s3 files that aren’t even in my bucket and the issue still persists. Very strange.
I was browsing around and I wonder if you can help with a couple of questions I have about the plugin.
Security
We currently have our Members’ Area on a Wordpress website with a membership plugin.
This has a feature that generates self-expiring links to help prevent sharing (“expire X minutes after page load”).
As @Bubbleboy noticed, your plugin preview doesn’t display urls on hover. I can’t find any urls in the page’s html either, but I’m no expert.
What function does the plugin use to get the url for the download?
Are the download urls protected, or is there some way to find them?
Speed & Location of Server
As the download links on our site are hosted in an S3 bucket and accessed through a plugin, I don’t believe we can have Cloudflare or some other dynamic server choice based on the user’s location.
Is it possible to use your plugin (or something else) to achieve this?
We have users from all over the globe and often get support messages saying the connection is slow or is timing out. We’d like to avoid this with Bubble if possible!
Hi Paul,
I believe by using Bubble’s privacy settings in the database tab you can restrict access to the files that you want to let your users download only to those users who these files belong to.
Bubble actually uses Amazon S3 rather than their own servers, right?
If I used this method and a user found the S3 link and shared it, I presume Bubble wouldn’t be able to prevent others accessing the file, as the url would take them directly to S3. Unless it’s simply not possible for a user to discover where the file is coming from with your plugin?
There’s also the speed concern. I don’t know whether I’d be able to distribute the same file across S3 servers at different locations. Or perhaps use Cloudflare or something?
Sorry, bit of a newbie so I’m not sure how this all works.
Thanks again for your help, it’s much appreciated.
even if user discovers the link i believe Bubble can still control the access rights to it. The best is to experiment though or do some research on this forum
it’d be one location. If you want multiple then you’d need to get dedicated servers from Bubble in different AWS locations which would be quite expensive.
@levon
Hi, I just bought the plugin. It works like a charm on a normal page, but when putting it into a reusable element, it does not.
When I trigger the download workflow, I get this message in the console: ReferenceError: Can’t find variable: download
I double checked and the configuration is the same than the one on the normal page that runs, and I compared with the demo app provided on the plugin page.
Hi @julienallard1 we have just updated the plugin and it should now work with reusable elements as well.
Please upgrade the plugin, refresh the page and give it another try
Thanks!
Appears like file downloading for images is currently down. My app stopped downloading and the @ZeroqodeSupport Zeroqode Demo Editor doesn’t work for images either.
-Jacob
@levon I’m about to uninstall and switch to a different plugin since we’re in a live environment and this is critical functionality that’s currently broken. Any ETA on this?
