# Help with Paraview Glance: Opening file by passing the fileURL as argument
**URL:** https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014
**Category:** Web
**Created:** [August 18, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014 "2020-08-18T17:08:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ramu](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Ramu)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/1 "2020-08-18T17:08:53Z")
Hello,
I am am running Paraview Glance app based on instruction from github. I am using it as a simple viewer in my project. I want to know if there is any way to pass file as argument to viewer instead of using `open dialog`.
I was able to do something similar with Geometry Viewer as shown in documentation
[https://kitware.github.io/vtk-js/examples/GeometryViewer/GeometryViewer.html?fileURL=https://data.kitware.com/api/v1/item/59de9de58d777f31ac641dc5/download](https://kitware.github.io/vtk-js/examples/GeometryViewer/GeometryViewer.html?fileURL=https://data.kitware.com/api/v1/item/59de9de58d777f31ac641dc5/download)
something like this: `endPoint?fileURL=filePath`
**Is it possible to do with paraview glance?**
---
### Author:  [@Forrest](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Forrest)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/2 "2020-08-18T18:19:45Z")
Hi,
Yes you can load data remotely. Here’s an example: [https://kitware.github.io/paraview-glance/app/?name=diskout.vtp&url=https://data.kitware.com/api/v1/item/59de9de58d777f31ac641dc5/download](https://kitware.github.io/paraview-glance/app/?name=diskout.vtp&url=https://data.kitware.com/api/v1/item/59de9de58d777f31ac641dc5/download)
I’ll update Glance’s documentation to reflect this.
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### Author:  [@Forrest](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Forrest)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/3 "2020-08-18T19:03:14Z")
Check out the docs on file loading: [https://kitware.github.io/paraview-glance/doc/loading\_files.html](https://kitware.github.io/paraview-glance/doc/loading_files.html)
---
### Author:  [@Nicholas\_Yue](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Nicholas_Yue)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2023, 9:37pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/4 "2023-01-17T21:37:14Z")
Hi @Forrest the documentation URL is no longer valid. Do you have the updated one ?
---
### Author:  [@Forrest](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Forrest)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/5 "2023-01-17T22:13:57Z")
Thanks for the ping! Yes, it’s updated to this URL: [Loading Files | Glance](https://kitware.github.io/glance/doc/loading_files.html)
---
### Author:  [@Nicholas\_Yue](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Nicholas_Yue)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2023, 2:04am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/6 "2023-01-23T02:04:28Z")
Hi @Forrest,
I have a related questions
If my \*.vtp files are locally generated (on my workstation), does it mean that I have to upload the files to some location before I can use this method ?
I tried the following but it just shows the file selection dialog from the glance server
```auto
xdg-open "https://kitware.github.io/glance/app/?name=monkey.vtp&url=file:///tmp/monkey.vtp"
```
Cheers
---
### Author:  [@Forrest](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Forrest)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2023, 8:53pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/7 "2023-01-23T20:53:29Z")
You cannot load local files (i.e. `file:` protocol urls) using this method. The files must be accessible over http(s) in order for remote data loading to work.
---
### Author:  [@finetjul](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/finetjul)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/help-with-paraview-glance-opening-file-by-passing-the-fileurl-as-argument/4014/8 "2023-01-24T13:30:36Z")
To expose your local files on the web, you can search for http server one liners such as in python `python -m http.server` or in js with `npm install -g http-server; http-server;`