Following up on issues with Opus and the file viewer – pdf files I can't delete and the like – I was thinking about how come things work in other file managers but not in Opus. I got an answer that made sense, at least I understood it.
It is to do with the way in which Opus interacts with viewer addins. This still doesn't tell me why Opus fails while other succeed. So I went to investigate the settings for viewer plugins.
I was particularly keen to see if it could detect that I have the latest version Quickview Plus installed. It turned out that Opus was finding viewers that came with a different software package (X1).
Here's what I did to change things. I'd be grateful if anyone could let me know if this is the right strategy and if it is likely to have any effect.
Instead of pointing the "Multiview" entry at the X1 filters, I just aimed it as "Quick View Plus\Programs".
It seems to have detected the stuff it finds there.
If this is the right tactic, is there any other trick that might make Opus work better with the viewer? Any viewer plugins that I should disable to avoid conflicts and give Quick View priority. Is that a pointless exercise?
Your configuration pointed to X1 viewers and you wonder why DO detected X1 viewers?
Then you used an option directing DO to viewers and you wonder if it is the proper way to direct DO to viewers?
Is there something I don't see here, or you need attitude adjustment?
[quote="Xyzzy"]Your configuration pointed to X1 viewers and you wonder why DO detected X1 viewers?
Then you used an option directing DO to viewers and you wonder if it is the proper way to direct DO to viewers?
Is there something I don't see here, or you need attitude adjustment?
X.[/quote]
I should have added that DO decided to use the X1 viewers. I did not tell it to look there.
That was another issue that I did not really consider to be relevant.
I was asking for advice on whether I had done the right thing. If there were any possible drawbacks, or benefits.
I apologies for not asking questions in an acceptable way.
Maybe someone with more understanding of how to deal with stupid questions can step in and answer me without throwing around insults.
The PDF file locking happens because Adobe Reader locks files when viewing them. You can see the same thing if you double-click a PDF file to open it in Adobe Reader, without Opus being involved at all. (Assuming Adobe Reader is associated with PDF files.) The "Open Temporary Copies" option makes the Opus viewer/plugin create a copy of the file and tells Adobe Reader to open that instead of the real file.
The Locate button in the MultiView plugin will search below the folder you specify and stop at the first set of QuickView DLLs it finds. If you have more than one set of those DLLs on your computer, and you want a particular one, then picking a specific directory is the right way to do it. I think that's what you did so you should be good to go, assuming the DLLs you found are compatible. (From what people have said, some versions of the DLLs don't work with the MultiView plugin.)
When you view a file, Opus goes down the list of viewer plugins, in the same order that they are shown in Preferences, asking if each plugin can view the file. The first plugin which says "yes" wins.
MultiView is a "catch-all" plugin which means it is forced to the bottom of the list (with any other catch-all plugins). This is because it's quite likely to say "yes" for many file types and keeping it at the bottom allows specific plugins to take priority over it.
You should disable or reconfigure any plugins which are higher up the list that handle file types which you would rather were handled by MultiView. Or, if the other plugin is also a catch-all, you can re-order the two plugins to give MultiView priority. (To move a plugin in the Preferences list, select it and then use the up/down arrows above the list.)
The ActiveX + Preview + Office + Web plugin is the one most likely to overlap with MultiView. Since it is a catch-all you can move MultiView above it to get what you want. You can also configure the ActiveX plugin to assign/remove certain extensions, if you prefer. Or you can disable it completely if you don't want to use it at all.
If you're not sure which plugin is being used to view a particular file, open the file in the viewer pane and then right-click the viewer pane's title. (i.e. Right-click where the filename is, on the same line as the viewer pane's X close button.) The 3rd item from the bottom of the right-click menu will indicate the plugin. If an internal viewer is used instead of a plugin (as you'd see with a JPEG file, for example) then there won't be anything there (i.e. the 3rd item from the bottom will be a separator bar instead of a plugin name).
The best strategy would seem to be to consult the list of formats that QuickView claims to support, and to disable any other addins that might compete.
I say that thinking that because I have a new version of QuickView it will be pretty well up to date on formats. I have had QuickView Plus ever since Microsoft first put a slimmed down version into Windows, only to remove it again.
Then again, it may be an unwise assumption to think that QuickView is on the ball. I have warned users of X1 that Stellent is slow to issue new viewers. They did not get around to Office 2007 until some time after the official release. Now that Oracle owns the business, I can't see them busting a gut to keep up with the cutting edge.
I take the point about the interactions between DOpus and QuickView. But Stellent's technology doesn't seem to change much, beyond adding new formats, so I think we are safe in assuming that if it did work, then it will continue to do so.
If all hell breaks loose then I may have to rethink.