Drag and Drop *FROM* a browser?

26
votes

Dragging items into a browser is pretty well documented, and HTML5 makes this easier.

However, I'm wondering if and how it's possible to drag 'n' drop out of a browser.

In this scenario, you'd have a webpage element (eg. an anchor) that the user would click & drag OUT of the browser onto a drop target, and the browser would send the linked object (eg. an href'd file) directly to the drop target instead of starting the usual download.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

2
htmldrag-and-drop
No, it's definitely not. – woz
@woz: I'm pretty sure it actually is. Try dragging a link to a .mp3 file or something, won't it download the file to that location? Or would it simply create a link on your desktop? – Madara's Ghost
@MadaraUchiha It doesn't work for me. Drag-and-drop to from a website to your computer would be such a big security issue that I doubt it will ever be implemented. – woz
You can drag and drop from a browser, however what is does depends on the browser used. In some browsers, dragging and dropping a link to the desktop will copy the file to the computer. – Jocelyn
I just tried with Firefox: dragging a link: it creates a shortcut. Dragging a picture: it copies the picture to the computer. – Jocelyn

2 Answers

12
votes

The very thing you are trying to do can be found here: https://ryanseddon.com/html5/gmail-dragout/.

This is an explanation for how to drag an anchor tag to the desktop, and the file will be downloaded there. (Or drag the anchor tag onto another application, and the OS will treat it appropriately.)

What I haven't figured out yet, is how to drag-and-drop multiple links (instead of only one at a time) via HTML5, without having to resort to an external resource library like jquery.

4
votes

Conceptually Yes, this is possible. But it would be the OS/application handling the drop to decide what to do with it. In fact you can do exactly what you describe with chrome. Open a new chrome window and drag a link to it. It navigates there. Drag a link to your desktop. In Win7 it creates a shortcut/link to that page.

What you are talking about is not HTML drag and drop but actually at an OS/application level. And would have to be handled with an application language, not the browser HTML.