Baserow 0.6: File field, thumbnails, and upload via URL or drag and drop

When we conducted the survey a few months ago, we added a new feature that allowed users to upload images, documents, and other files by selecting a field. This new file field received high ratings because many people found it useful. In this month’s update, we have made several small changes, fixed bugs, and introduced the anticipated file field.

File field

Starting today, you can create a new file field in your table. You can easily upload files by dragging and dropping them into a file field cell. Alternatively, you can open the file upload modal and choose the files you want to upload or provide a URL where your file is located. For uploaded images, thumbnails will be generated, while other files will have recognizable icons. Clicking on a file will enlarge it to full screen view. You can also download all files back to your computer.

Link to table as primary field bug

The primary field value is used to identify each row in a table. Therefore, at least one field, the primary field, must always exist in a table and cannot be deleted. If you have tried using the link to table field, you may have noticed that it creates a related field in the linked table. If one of these fields is deleted, the other field is automatically deleted as well.

If you changed the primary field to a link to table field and then delete the related field, it causes technical problems. To prevent this issue, it is now impossible to change the primary field to a link to table field. If you had already done this, we have automatically created a new primary field for you.

Disable filter switch

If you have created filters in your view but want to temporarily see all data unfiltered, you previously had to delete all your filters and add them again later. Now, thanks to Keith, we have added a toggle that allows you to temporarily disable the filters.

All changes

Here are all the changes in Baserow version 0.6:

• Introduced file field type.
• Fixed link row as primary field bug.
• Disabled all filters switch (by Keith).
• Fixed a scrollbar issue in the API docs.
• Made it possible to order by a field via the rows listing endpoint.
• Depending on the connection protocol of the web frontend the authentication token is now either secure or lax.
• It’s not needed to provide the _DOMAIN variables anymore when self hosting Baserow.

Self hosted

If you’re running the self-hosted version and followed the step-by-step Ubuntu installation guide, you need to make the following changes to your server.

$ cd /baserow

# Pull the latest code from the git repo and create the media directory where the
# uploaded files are going to be saved.
$ git pull
$ mkdir media
$ chmod 0755 media

# Run the database migrations
$ source backend/env/bin/activate
$ export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE='baserow.config.settings.base'
$ export DATABASE_PASSWORD="yourpassword"
$ export DATABASE_HOST="localhost"
$ baserow migrate
$ deactivate

# You need to point another domain to your Baserow server in order to serve the
# uploaded files. Replace the `*YOUR_DOMAIN*` with your new domain.
$ cp docs/guides/installation/configuration-files/nginx/baserow-media.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/baserow-media.conf
$ nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/baserow-media.conf

# You must update your supervisor config and add the following environments variables
# to the baserow-backend.conf. Note that you must replace MEDIA_DOMAIN with your new
# media domain.
# MEDIA_ROOT='/baserow/media',
# MEDIA_URL='https://MEDIA_DOMAIN'
$ nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/baserow-backend.conf

# Add an ssl certificate for the new domain and restart supervisor.
$ sudo certbot --nginx
$ supervisorctl update
$ supervisorctl restart all