Instead of taking the URL without permission, I aim to display a preview of the file they select (for instance, converting an image to base32 and displaying a preview).
It's important to note that you cannot access or utilize the user's local file system path. Therefore, you can't directly use the real path of a file on their machine for previewing purposes.
If you do require a URL or path to access the file for tasks such as showing an image preview, you can generate a temporary URL that allows you to achieve this. The Javascript function for this is:
window.URL.createObjectURL(myObject)
(
Reference)
Below is a sample code snippet demonstrating an image preview using HTML, Javascript, and jQuery...
<div id="formContainer">
<form action="http://example.com" method="POST">
<input id="imageUploadInput" name="imageUploadInput" type="file" accept="image/*" />
<button id="submitButton" type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
</div>
<div id="imagePreviewContainer">
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
$("#imageUploadInput").change(function () {
var image = this.files[0];
$("#imagePreviewContainer").innerHTML = '';
var imgCaption = document.createElement("p");
imgCaption.innerHTML = image.name;
var imgElement = document.createElement("img");
imgElement.src = window.URL.createObjectURL(image);
imgElement.onload = function () {
window.URL.revokeObjectURL(this.src);
};
$("#imagePreviewContainer").innerHTML = ''; // clear existing content
$("#imagePreviewContainer").append(imgCaption);
$("#imagePreviewContainer").append(imgElement);
});
</script>
Feel free to experiment with it yourself on this live example: http://jsfiddle.net/u6Fq7/