Create a BlobToURI() function to improve flow integration

[paulculmsee]

Right now the camera control will store a photo as a dataURI string (when used in browser on on Android/IOS)

eg data&colon;image/jpeg;base64<long base64 string>

Now since this is a string, one can easily pass this to flow and unencode it back to a binary there: I describe this approach in a recernt blog post.

Unfortunately this method is brittle. Firstly, if you use PowerApps Studio App, it stores the data a local blob object which looks like this:

blob:https://us.create.powerapps.com/dd6409a9-1b09-4ef5-a64b-21c84b16bb54 (if using the web player)blob:http://127.0.0.1:49428/b7371d5a-bec9-45da-acb4-e2c6a1fefff6 (if using the Android/IOS player)

Furthermore the "Add picture" control stores things as a blob no matter what.

If you hook PowerApps to flow and try and use the image(s) the blob URL is sent as a string, and therefore cannot be processed at the flow end. Flow can only handle dataURI encoded strings.

Now there are a couple of ways around this depending on your perspective. One easy thing to do would be to provide a function that allows a local blob item to be converted to a dataURI formatted string - hence the idea of a BlobtoURI function. This would mean I can deploy PowerApps and have the ability to work with images just using flow and not having to resort to writing a custom API or Azure fucntion. 

While I recogmise that a good solution might be for the flow team to support formdata from PowerApps and not just a string, I beleive the method I present here is simpler, has no UI impacts and is unlikely to create regression issues as it is simple adding a function.

This thread is a key to understanding this issue...

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/PowerApps-Forum/Retrieving-Data-URI-from-an-image-added-via-the-...

[jfb]

Any update on this?

[fbxiii]

I think having the option of saving images taken with the Picture control direct to a sharepoint list is also a good idea. The Camera control isn't very good in itself and users want to be able to select images from their devices gallery or use the native camera controls to take the images.

[CWesener]

Updating status and adding @EvanChakiMSFT