docutils-users

[Docutils-users] image from URL?

[Alan G I. <ala...@gm...>]

The URL ``http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=KlW`` serves
an image in PNG format, but I cannot simple provide it to the ``image`` directive.
Is there a good way to proceed within docutils?

Thanks,
Alan Isaac

Re: [Docutils-users] image from URL?

[Guenter M. <mi...@us...>]

Dear Alan,

On 2014-09-15, Alan G Isaac wrote:

> The URL
> ``http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=KlW``
> serves an image in PNG format, but I cannot simple provide it to the
> ``image`` directive. Is there a good way to proceed within docutils?

The image directive expects an URL as argument.
What is the problem? 
What do you want to achieve, what is your output format?
What is the result you get?

Günter

Re: [Docutils-users] image from URL?

[Alan G I. <ai...@am...>]

> On 2014-09-15, Alan G Isaac wrote:
>> The URL
>> ``http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=KlW``
>> serves an image in PNG format, but I cannot simple provide it to the
>> ``image`` directive. Is there a good way to proceed within docutils?


Guenter Milde <mi...@us...> wrote:
> The image directive expects an URL as argument.
> What is the problem?
> What do you want to achieve, what is your output format?
> What is the result you get?


Hi Günter,

Thank you for your patient reply to my appallingly
incomplete inquiry.  (Excuse: I was hurriedly revising
some slides using rst2beamer.)

Here's the issue: if I provide that URL, then the LaTeX
generated is an \includegraphics command referring to:

     P:/research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=KlW

(The ``P:/`` presumably derives from the ``http://``.) So
this has two problems:

1. it refers to the wrong location, and
2. LaTeX cannot handle URLs for graphics inclusion

In principle the second problem could be addressed by using
the \externalfigure command with ConTeXt, but I am not
a ConTeXt user, and in any case that would still leave the
first problem.

So I think (?) this report has become both a bug report
(problem 1) and a possible enhancement request (problem 2).
I am not sure about the enhancement request, because it is
not clear to me whose responsibility this should be:
docutils, or LaTeX.  Given the current limitations of
LaTeX, I am inclined to think that the right solution is
for the LaTeX writer to write a hyperlink.  However one
could imagine allowing docutils users to specify an
imagecache directory for storing images referred to by URL.

fwiw,
Alan