So I like to use a lot of external assets from royalty-free websites. My process (much like many others) is:
- Go to a website that offers free assets
- Download the asset(s)
- Import the asset(s) into Blocs
My idea is to add a tab in the Blocs ‘Assets’ panel that displays assets from external royalty-free websites and displays the assets just like how Blocs displays their assets. And Bloc’s users can scroll through a library of royalty-free assets and import them into their project with just one click (instead of using the above process).
A few websites I use for royalty-free assets are:
I know that there is the ability to add ‘Hosted Assets’, but I don’t like using it because I feel like it is not reliable due to the fact that if that asset owner decides to stop hosting it, your website will be left without the asset.
This is just a thought, and I am pretty sure this will help the majority of users a lot.
Thanks in advance, and I would love to hear what others think about this.
With hosted assets you upload the images to the server of the website, or indeed any website, so nobody can remove them but you. In effect, Blocs is simply following a url and making the asset available for selection.
There may be an argument for including integration with various RF libraries like pixabay to facilitate searching, but I think that is pretty low on the list of priorities right now.
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ohh, so if i add a hosted asset, and the original uploader of the asset removes it, I will still have it on my website? Thanks for the clarity.
Even still, i think it would make a very nice addition to be able to view the images inside of the Blocs app.
Thanks again 
Yes that is correct. Simply download the file to your computer from pixabay or wherever via the web browser, then use your FTP client to host that image in a folder on your own server. Copy that file as a web link and then add it to to asset manager inside Blocs. The web link would be something like https://sunnymede.net/screenshots/deville-861.jpg and won’t be lost unless deleted from the server.
The feature you request to view images from these sites with Blocs is something that was added recently to Rapidweaver and I gather it also allows you to download the file as well, but there are many more useful features that could be added to Blocs before that and I should add that they are missing from Rapidweaver as well.
Ohh, that is not what I was looking for. My idea is to completely remove the process of looking for the asset and downloading it.
I was just thinking of adding a feature to where it is already built into Blocs, so we can avoid the whole process.
Thanks anyways
But what is the problem of downloading the asset to your computer? I also fail to see how you can avoid looking for an asset that you wish to use.
Most of the time it will need to be optimised for web usage anyway and there is always a chance it could be removed from the original website.
I think it would be a helpful option. Some other apps such as Sparkle have this feature and it can be a bit of a timesaver when you’re in the middle of laying out a website. In most cases, the image is downloaded and optimised for the web automatically. In the example below, the original image is about 900k but when exported by the app, it’s only 28K for the hi-res version and 13k for the low-res version.
The screenshot below shows the Sparkle interface that uses this feature. Images can be searched just like on the main site.
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There is no problem of downloading the asset to my computer. There are no problems…
I am just saying that it would be a cool option to be able to see the assets (from other royalty-free websites) inside of Blocs and being able to download the assets within Blocs (the assets would be saved to the project folder, if downloaded) instead of searching for the image in a browser, downloading it, and saving it to the project folder.
I just think that it would be a cool option that would save a lot of people some time, and it would be very convenient.
Yeah, this is exactly what i’m talking about haha
It would be very cool if we could see this in a future Blocs update.
@Flashman this is what I am trying to suggest.
OK it looks like this could be more useful than I imagined judging by the reports on Sparkle. Earlier on I looked at the way this is done in Rapidweaver 8 and it appears to be button inside preferences that is a glorified link to the Unsplash website via Safari. You can then download files via the web browser, which hardly feels like an earth shattering advance in web design.
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Yeah haha
It’s just something I was thinking about and thought I would throw it up on this forum.
