Add fromURLToFolder parameter to define target folder

[MUFFANUJ]

Closes #28

This PR adds a fromURLToFolder query parameter to control where files opened via fromURL are created. When folder is provided, the extension creates missing directories, uploads all requested files into that folder in order, opens them, and restores the previous file-browser directory afterward. It also removes handled query params (fromURL and fromURLToFolder) from the URL after processing and updates the README with the new usage.

[github-actions]

👈 Launch a Binder on branch MUFFANUJ/jupyterlab-open-url-parameter/addFolderSupport

[krassowski]

Second thought on naming: folder/directory might conflict with query args in other extensions. fromURLToFolder would be a safe bet I suppose. CC @jtpio and @yuvipanda as contributors here in case if you have thoughts.

[jtpio]

Second thought on naming: folder/directory might conflict with query args in other extensions. fromURLToFolder would be a safe bet I suppose

Yes that's always an issue, also something seen in JupyterLite with the REPL query arguments.

Not sure there is a good way to handle this properly except maybe trying to make the argument more unique, like this suggestion.

[jtpio]

btw feel free to merge and make a new release if you need that change for the plugin playground and JupyterLab.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds support for uploading and opening fromURL resources into a specified destination folder, with accompanying documentation and CI/docs build environment updates.

Changes:

• Add fromURLToFolder query parameter handling to upload fromURL files into a target folder (creating directories as needed) and restore the prior filebrowser directory afterward.
• Remove handled query parameters from the URL after processing (fromURL, fromURLToFolder).
• Update docs/readme and modernize docs/CI configuration (ReadTheDocs + artifact actions + docs conda env).

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/index.ts	Implements folder-targeted uploads, directory creation, sequential open behavior, and query param cleanup.
README.md	Documents the new fromURLToFolder usage with examples.
docs/environment.yml	Updates docs build environment dependencies (JupyterLab/Node/JupyterLite).
.readthedocs.yml	Updates ReadTheDocs build image/tooling selectors.
.github/workflows/check-release.yml	Bumps artifact upload action version.
.github/workflows/build.yml	Bumps artifact upload/download action versions.

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[yuvipanda]

I love this feature!

However, note that there are potential security issues here - nbgitpuller faces the same ones, as described in jupyter/docker-stacks#2000. You can construct a link that pulls an arbitrary file into being .bashrc (if it doesn't exist) for example, or similar.

My approach to dealing with this in nbgitpuller was to try to have a setting that lets hub admins who care about it turn that off (we never actually did it though). Perhaps we could do that from the start here?

[krassowski]

Thanks for that @yuvipanda, that's a valid concern. Isn't that already possible on main with:

https://jupyterlab-open-url-param.readthedocs.io/en/latest/lite/lab?fromURL=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/rchowe/1727301/raw/c2dd8d45d62ce2a35ed4ccb7bd499597f3391485/.bashrc

Where is the concerning increase in the surface here? The root_dir should guard us against going up on jupyter-server, so I suppose if the root was set to / and one used prefered_dir for user folders then this could potentially allow to place files further down?

[yuvipanda]

Yeah, I realize .bashrc is already the case :) So don't let that concern block you here, but just something to keep in mind.

[krassowski]

Testing:

https://jupyterlab-open-url-param--29.org.readthedocs.build/en/29/lite/lab/?fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/data/iris.csv&fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/notebooks/Lorenz.ipynb

I noticed the extension is not installed correctly in the docs env, we must be missing something.

[krassowski]

Ok now this works

https://jupyterlab-open-url-param--29.org.readthedocs.build/en/29/lite/lab/?fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/data/iris.csv&fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/notebooks/Lorenz.ipynb

But with fromURLToFolder it does not?

https://jupyterlab-open-url-param--29.org.readthedocs.build/en/29/lite/lab/?fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/data/iris.csv&fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/notebooks/Lorenz.ipynb&fromURLToFolder=demo

https://jupyterlab-open-url-param--29.org.readthedocs.build/en/29/lite/lab/?fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/data/iris.csv&fromURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-demo/master/notebooks/Lorenz.ipynb&fromURLToFolder=/demo

In both cases I see

[MUFFANUJ]

working on fixing this :)

[krassowski]

Tested across a number of edge-cases, looks good - thank you!

[krassowski]

This is up: https://github.com/jupyterlab-contrib/jupyterlab-open-url-parameter/releases/tag/v0.4.0