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I recently saw that a variable org-display-remote-inline-images was added to Org mode. This is a huge one for technical documentation, but sadly I was not able to get it to work. I tried cache and then download value.

Workflow:

  1. Add [[https://URL-to-some-image.png]] to the document. (I tried also jpg and svg.)
  2. M-x org-toggle-inline-images

Am I missing something? I saw something with imagemagick in the diff-patch, imagemagick is installed on the system.

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  • "Did not work" means what? You got errors? The image is blank? Something else? If you got errors, what were they?
    – NickD
    Apr 28, 2021 at 9:10
  • I would try a file link with a Tramp remote path. I'm not sure that insert-file-contents-literally (which is used with download) knows how to get files over HTTPS. Something like [[file:/scp:user@host:/path/to/foo.png]].
    – NickD
    Apr 28, 2021 at 9:24
  • Nothing happens, no errors, the link stays the link no picture appears. I'll try the file test later.
    – Jens Lange
    Apr 29, 2021 at 10:17

1 Answer 1

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I agree with NickD in the comments above that out of the box this currently only works for Tramp remote links. Tested with recent build of Emacs 29 development.

Then I read somewhere that this does work in Doom Emacs so I went digging through its source.

Below is what I had to do to get my vanilla Emacs to show inline images from http / https URLs:

;; https://blog.tecosaur.com/tmio/2021-04-26-Welcome.html#inline-display-remote
;; on 2022-09-04 this only works for tramp remote links and not for http / https
(setq org-display-remote-inline-images 'cache)

;; we look to doom emacs for an example how to get remote images also working
;; for normal http / https links
;; 1. image data handler
(defun org-http-image-data-fn (protocol link _description)
  "Interpret LINK as an URL to an image file."
  (when (and (image-type-from-file-name link)
             (not (eq org-display-remote-inline-images 'skip)))
    (if-let (buf (url-retrieve-synchronously (concat protocol ":" link)))
        (with-current-buffer buf
          (goto-char (point-min))
          (re-search-forward "\r?\n\r?\n" nil t)
          (buffer-substring-no-properties (point) (point-max)))
      (message "Download of image \"%s\" failed" link)
      nil)))

;; 2. add this as link parameter for http and https
(org-link-set-parameters "http"  :image-data-fun #'org-http-image-data-fn)
(org-link-set-parameters "https" :image-data-fun #'org-http-image-data-fn)

;; 3. pull in org-yt which will advise ~org-display-inline-images~ how to do the extra handling
(use-package org-yt
  :quelpa (org-yt :fetcher github :repo "TobiasZawada/org-yt"))
(require 'org-yt)

See also:

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