Viewing URL from Google Sheets as Image – A Tip

[RoryF]

I stumbled across this in the last couple of days.  I was having a problem displaying a URL from Google Sheets as an image in a Card View.  But I found out how to do this.

1. When the Data is loaded the field type will be set as a URL.  Change this to Image (but don’t save).
2. Create the Card View – you will be able to select the field where the Photo goes (because it is an image). If it doesn’t show up then do a save and it should be available
3. Go back to the Data field and now change it to URL.  Save your work.
4. The URL should now render as an image in the card view.

This seems to be consistent all the time for me now.  I can get any URL in Google Sheets to display an image in a Card view.

Hope someone finds this useful.

RoryF

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Thank you for sharing this tip @RoryF . I tested based on your  tip and yes the card image column works with URL column type.

[SkrOYC]

Does the images show for any user of your app no mather the auth provider?

[RoryF]

I couldn't answer that - you may have to test that scenario..

I can tell you that I found this while developing the Appsheet app.  Also relevant is that the URL actually points to an image on a different cloud service (not google), which has an integration with Google Sheets.  So there are "permission settings" that are accepted when this integration is initially setup.  I have distributed as a prototype to some friends (email invited) and it works for them also.

Regards,

RoryF

[Fabian_Weller]

Thank you @RoryF for this tip. May I ask why you want to use the column type url instead of image? Do you want to allow to enter an url instead of uploading an image?

[RoryF]

Hi Fabian.

I am using a Cloud based forms collection service to collect data (including photographs), and using an integration with Google sheets to write the data collected to a Google sheet (to feed Appsheet).  The pictures are not actually stored in Google sheets, but in the sheet as a URL link to the forms server.  Hence the need to display the URL as an image trick.

Hope that helps,

RoryF

[Fabian_Weller]

That sounds great. How does such an URL link look like?

[jyothis_m]

@RoryF I achieved this another way. I created a virtual column of Image Type with App formula =URL Column. I used this for displaying the imag

[RoryF]

Yes - there are likely some variations on the theme..

I guess the main points are:

 - When the App is created from Google Sheet data, which has a URL field then the field type will be (initially) set to URL

 - In order for a Card View to display a Picture it will only allow you to select an "Image" field type.

 - Changing the field type before/after creating the Card view will allow you to display a URL as a picture.

And that's probably all I have to say about that.   Thanks for all the comments/likes.  I hope it helps someone.

RoryF