Binary dragged & dropped files should not be fetched as text by default

[wlach]

Steps to reproduce:

• drag & drop a binary file into iodide main page (e.g. an excel file called Furniture_only.xls)

Expected:

%% fetch
blob: file0=Furniture_only.xls

Got:

%% fetch
text: file0=Furniture_only.xls

It is still a pain to do something with the excel file (#2447) but the fact that we're fetching the file as text is yet another roadblock. Perhaps we could sniff the type of the uploaded file and then set this property of the created notebook accordingly? @hamilton / @openjck any thoughts on this?

[wlach]

Did some spelunking and the code in question is here:

iodide/src/server/pages/home-page.jsx

Line 160 in bd3ea66

({ file }, i) => `text: file${i}=${file.name}`

The file object we're destructuring and mapping also has a type property in addition to a name (e.g. text/csv, image/png). A quick win here would be to use blob if the type property does not start with "text".

[wlach]

Working on this will require setting up the full server implementation (since the home page isn't visible with simple-serve) but should not otherwise be too difficult.

[ThobyV]

Hi, I would love to work on this.

[wlach]

Hi, I would love to work on this.

Great! Go ahead and submit a PR, be sure to follow the guidelines here:

https://iodide-project.github.io/docs/contributing/

Note that there are no current plans for Iodide to participate in next year's GSOC.