Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive
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I can't seem to figure this out. I don't want to sync files from O365 or Google Drive, I want to open them directly. Office files are fine, as Office is nicely integrated with O365, it's non-Office/Google files.
For example, I want to keep my Keepass database (a .kdbx file) in either Sharepoint online, ODFB, or Google Drive. But I don't want a copy on my computer, I want to open it directly.
I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious.
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You could only open it directly if there was a web browser plug in that understood how to do that - and even then I'm not sure I consider it direct because you're really downloading the file to a local cache and then opening it in a program that's integrated into the browser.
The best example of this is PDFs. Adobe Reader (or the built in PDF readers many web browsers now have) integrates directly into the browser. When you click on a link that represents a PDF online, that file is downloaded to the local cache and then opened in the PDF browser extension.
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Speaking of Keepass, LastPass does what you want visually, though not doing what you are explaining you want specifically.
Like Adobe Reader, it downloads the DB from LPs website to a local cache then opens it in the browser plugin.
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Native to the platform things, like xlsx files in O365 are opened - though I'm not really sure where? Is an app downloaded into your browser along with your data? or does the app actually run on the web server and just give you screen scrapes ala terminal services (TS only mentioned as a comparison of something displaying locally but not running locally).
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I am pretty sure you can mount a Sharepoint site natively in Windows via WebDAV (I really like this technology if you haven't noticed).
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@coliver said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
I am pretty sure you can mount a Sharepoint site natively in Windows via WebDAV (I really like this technology if you haven't noticed).
man, that seems dangerous - does versioning still apply if you do that?
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@Dashrender said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
@coliver said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
I am pretty sure you can mount a Sharepoint site natively in Windows via WebDAV (I really like this technology if you haven't noticed).
man, that seems dangerous - does versioning still apply if you do that?
Yep. WebDAV is literally just an interface to the website. All the backend database specific things still carry through. It is susceptible to crypto-esque ransomware but with the Sharepoint backend there is some protection.
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Sounds like I'm not missing anything obvious then!
I see to recall @scottalanmiller saying recently that you don't need to encrypt a laptop hard drive because you should never store anything on it - everything should be cloud only. I'm kinda on board with that, but I don't understand how you do that. Like, he recommends LibreOffice (I think?) but how do you open a Word document stored in Sharepoint in LibreOffice without downloading it onto the laptop first?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
Sounds like I'm not missing anything obvious then!
I see to recall @scottalanmiller saying recently that you don't need to encrypt a laptop hard drive because you should never store anything on it - everything should be cloud only. I'm kinda on board with that, but I don't understand how you do that. Like, he recommends LibreOffice (I think?) but how do you open a Word document stored in Sharepoint in LibreOffice without downloading it onto the laptop first?
WebDAV doesn't store anything on the local machine but credentials and connection information. Working on a document and saving it instantly saves it directly to the server without hitting the local hard disk.
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@coliver said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
I am pretty sure you can mount a Sharepoint site natively in Windows via WebDAV (I really like this technology if you haven't noticed).
Cool. By mounting, do you mean mapping it to a drive letter? This works very easily, but is this the only way (mapped drives being a bit meh).
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@Carnival-Boy said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
@coliver said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
I am pretty sure you can mount a Sharepoint site natively in Windows via WebDAV (I really like this technology if you haven't noticed).
Cool. By mounting, do you mean mapping it to a drive letter? This works very easily, but is this the only way (mapped drives being a bit meh).
You can also add network locations as a folder I think.
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Yeah. The address is \\mydomain.sharepoint.com@SSL\DavWWWRootNo, I can't figure out how to add it without mapping to a drive letter.
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After a reboot, I can't get WebDAV to work at all.
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@coliver said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
@Carnival-Boy said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
Sounds like I'm not missing anything obvious then!
I see to recall @scottalanmiller saying recently that you don't need to encrypt a laptop hard drive because you should never store anything on it - everything should be cloud only. I'm kinda on board with that, but I don't understand how you do that. Like, he recommends LibreOffice (I think?) but how do you open a Word document stored in Sharepoint in LibreOffice without downloading it onto the laptop first?
WebDAV doesn't store anything on the local machine but credentials and connection information. Working on a document and saving it instantly saves it directly to the server without hitting the local hard disk.
Are you sure that no Filename.do~ gets created during the editing session? If it does, and someone wants information bad enough, they could try to recover that temp file.
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@Dashrender said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
@coliver said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
@Carnival-Boy said in Opening files directly from Sharepoint online or Google Drive:
Sounds like I'm not missing anything obvious then!
I see to recall @scottalanmiller saying recently that you don't need to encrypt a laptop hard drive because you should never store anything on it - everything should be cloud only. I'm kinda on board with that, but I don't understand how you do that. Like, he recommends LibreOffice (I think?) but how do you open a Word document stored in Sharepoint in LibreOffice without downloading it onto the laptop first?
WebDAV doesn't store anything on the local machine but credentials and connection information. Working on a document and saving it instantly saves it directly to the server without hitting the local hard disk.
Are you sure that no Filename.do~ gets created during the editing session? If it does, and someone wants information bad enough, they could try to recover that temp file.
If that is the behavior of the application to store a temporary file to the local disk then that will probably happen. WebDAV does nothing to prevent the applications default behavior.
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@Carnival-Boy said
I see to recall @scottalanmiller saying recently that you don't need to encrypt a laptop hard drive because you should never store anything on it - everything should be cloud only. I'm kinda on board with that, but I don't understand how you do that. Like, he recommends LibreOffice (I think?) but how do you open a Word document stored in Sharepoint in LibreOffice without downloading it onto the laptop first?
I think part of the completion of that thought is to only use data in applications that are cloud-data-aware.
So, you would only use Office documents. (For example, I asked "what about text files", and he said, just put it in Word.)
You would only put pictures and things in a picture-aware app (such as Flickr.)
Adobe stuff in Adobe apps.
Anything that still falls through the cracks you'd have to download locally.
At least I think that is the drift...
