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Getting the local path of file uploaded via Box uploader

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NoahK

We've added the Box ContentUploader to our application, and we need to get the duration of videos that we are uploading. Is there a way to get the local path of a file once it is dropped in the uploader window? I am able to do so by creating an uploader of my own and then running the following JS:

var myVideos = [];

window.URL = window.URL || window.webkitURL;

document.getElementById('fileUp').onchange = setFileInfo;

function setFileInfo() {
    var files = this.files;
    myVideos.push(files[0]);
    var video = document.createElement('video');
    video.preload = 'metadata';

    video.onloadedmetadata = function() {
        window.URL.revokeObjectURL(video.src);
        var duration = video.duration;
        myVideos[myVideos.length - 1].duration = duration;
        updateInfos();
    }

    video.src = URL.createObjectURL(files[0]);;
}


function updateInfos() {
    var infos = document.getElementById('infos');
    infos.textContent = "";
    for (var i = 0; i < myVideos.length; i++) {
        infos.textContent += myVideos[i].name + " duration: " + myVideos[i].duration + '\n';
    }
}

All I need is the local path

5

Comments

4 comments

Date Votes
  • Official comment
    Alex Novotny

    Hey Noah, 

    Can you expand further on what you mean by local path? 

    Thanks. 

    Alex, Box Developer Advocate

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  • NoahK

    Alex,

    Apologies, maybe I mean relative path. What I am trying to do, once a file is dropped in the Box ContentUploader, is to programmatically grab the path of the file on the user's computer, i.e. /Users/user/Desktop/filename.mp4 or whatever it might be. I would then use that path to set the value of 'fileUp' in the code snippet in order to get the file duration. So far I have tried uploader.on('complete'...) and uploader.on('upload'...) but those only seem to return information from the uploaded file in Box. I am hoping there is some way that the ContentUploader knows the file's location that it is uploading from.

    Thanks,

    Noah

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  • Alex Novotny

    I reached out to our UI Elements team. Grabbing the path from the uploading computer is not a feature of the content uploader. It looks like the web browsers block us from getting that information. 

    Alex 

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  • NoahK

    Thanks for looking into it Alex, much appreciated!

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