[Feature] More options for uploading attachment files, referencing external URLs as attachments

[candideu]

Recommending Features

I would like to see more options for attaching files, besides the local directory.

Although integrating third party cloud storage services (Nextcloud, GDrive, Dropbox, pCloud, Box, etc.) might be challenging, it would be nice to link to external URLs containing files without uploading them directly.

For example, rather than downloading an image found online, a user could simply paste the image's online link, and nocodb could use that external reference, rather than uploading it to the user's cloud storage.

Need for this feature Use case:

• Embedding media stored elsewhere without having to download it to your PC first
• Save space in your selected cloud storage (if linking to external URL)

Describe the solution you'd like + Additional context Example from Airtable:

Example from Baserow:

[robertandrews]

+1 for this.

[setop]

it would be nice to link to external URLs containing files without uploading them directly

+1

[DarkPhoenix2704]

Both the Airtable and Baserow uploads the files to the storage server from the given url.

The similar functionality is implemented in NocoDB from 0.251.2

[cbertelli]

I will submit a convoluted use case. But I think it's useful.
We usually upload full resolution photos to an s3 bucket and we would like to reference them by URL. To make things worse, we use an image CDN that automatically resizes images to a manageable size (a small one for web display). Inside the database the URL is masked with an SQL view, but I suppose it could be handled inside NocoDB as a calculated field as well.
We tried to simulate a json column inside an SQL view, but we did not succeed in displaying the image.
Is there a solution?