new user so probably my mistake, but this is a weird one. Yesterday I turned on the viewer pane and metadata pane for the first time, and I thought great - just the job for the photos etc. But when I click on any pdf file I get this weird message about a file I know nothing about.
Hopefully you can see the attempt to download a pdf file which I have not initiated nor is the name known to me. I get out of it by pressing cancel.
If I deselect the viewer pane this does not happen.
So until yesterday I was using dopus without any major changes to the configuration, except for adding the odd column. Of course now I've seen the viewer pane I really want to keep it open all the time because it is so useful.
You need to install something like Adobe Reader, PDF-XChange, FoxIt (the preview handler may still be separate; I'm not sure) or QuickView Plus to view PDFs in Opus.
I need to do some research on all this, because I chose sumatra because it is very light without the bloat that comes with many other pdf readers.
But can I come back to a question I posed earlier:
I have not altered any of the standard viewer plugins and pdf is not mentioned in that list, so why does dopus try to view pdfs at all if there is no viewer plugin configured, and why can't I just tell dopus not to try to view pdf files?
This would give me time to do the research and in the meantime I would be able to enjoy using the viewer on files I want to be viewed.
So to try to answer my own question. On the viewer plugins page I can select the ActiveX line and I can choose About or Configure and Configure shows me a number of tick boxes including one for pdf and PDF-XChange. So can I not just deselect the ActiveX line on the viewer plugins page because the only viewers I need at the moment ar picture and text files?
I deselected activex on the viewer plugins page and that has stopped the spurious download message that was taking place upon selecting a pdf file. What is now odd is that sometimes the viewer shows a hex dump of the file (which is fine) and sometimes it shows a text dump of the pdf commands within the file (which is fine) - the question is why some pdfs show one way and some the other, when I have now effectively said not to view pdf files.
Is there something else I can do to stop dopus from processing something I don't want?
A clearer warning that there is no PDF viewer installed might prevent this sort of thing. But in Opus's defence, there can't be many people who don't use one of the more conventional PDF handlers. This isn't an issue that crops up here much, if ever.
Your pursuit of something "light" seems to have thrown up one of the drawbacks of that approach. Have you talked to the sumatra team? They may have a way of dealing with this issue.
While you are seeking a resolution to your problem, where do you stand on viewing PDF thumbnails? Do they look good? This one comes up more often than viewing PDF files themselves. Not all PDF software works there.
And what happens when you try to view files in Explorer? Can sumatra handle that?
If you click on a file with the viewer pane open then Opus will try to show it as best it can. All you've done is disabled it from using the ActiveX viewer to try to show it, so now it's falling through to the text plugin which is able to show any sort of file (in text mode if the file appears to be plain-text, and in hex as a last resort).
There's no way to tell Opus "don't try to show this type of file at all".
[quote="jon"]If you click on a file with the viewer pane open then Opus will try to show it as best it can. All you've done is disabled it from using the ActiveX viewer to try to show it, so now it's falling through to the text plugin which is able to show any sort of file (in text mode if the file appears to be plain-text, and in hex as a last resort).
There's no way to tell Opus "don't try to show this type of file at all".[/quote]
Aha!! so, the viewer plugin list in preferences is a top to bottom hierarchy, so that's why there are green buttons to move entries up and down and why the two text viewers are last in the list...
There's a lot to take in here. However, my current config is now loads better, as I can see photos and text files without having to double click them, and pdf files don't invoke a malware like download.
That's right. My apologies, I should have been clearer when, early on, I suggested
PS You may have to change the order in which the plugins appear.
By the way, installing a more Opus friendly PDF viewer – see the list on Leo's page – does not mean that you have to use that program to actually open PDF files. Simply having the software on your system provides you with the viewers that Opus can tap into. What you then do with PDF files is up to you.
In my case, QuickView provides the viewer while I use Power PDF (much cheaper than Acrobat) for reading and editing. So, no need to change the "association" between sumatra and PDF files. You may, though, have to repair that association after you install something else. A lot of software is a bit too heavy handed on that front and does not give the the option as to whether to make it the default viewer.
It's all a lot clearer now - thanks. Coming back to your earlier questions about viewing pdf files - personally I don't have a need to have a thumbnail. It doesn't seem so relevant to try to have a single image representing a multi page document as it does to be able to view a single image thumbnail or a text file.
When I used explorer I tried my best to stop it from doing all that processing behind the scenes which always seemed to be at the root of it becoming sluggish, non-responsive, etc. The way dopus works seems a bit worrying in that there is no way to switch off processing for selected file types, only the ability to control what method of processing is used, with the caveat that I am going to install the beta to see how that works as per Leo's point earlier.
Incidentally do you know if installing the beta will reset everything or will my column changes, viewer plugin changes, etc still be there?
If you don't want the viewer to display a file, don't open the viewer and select the file. It's very easy to avoid, and nothing you need to worry about anyway. Displaying a hex dump isn't going to cause any problems.
Installing a beta is the same as installing any other update. It won't reset any parts of your config unless we need to do something unusual (which would be mentioned in the release notes and restricted to as small a config change as is needed), which is very rare.
A front-page image is a good guide to what the file is. I can recognise many documents by their cover, making it quicker to find and open them.
Installing a new version of Opus will leave your settings unchanged. But if you are twitchy – aren't we all? – then you should backup your configuration. There's a menu item in Settings for that.
I like to leave the viewer and metadata panes on all the time. I can confirm that with my viewer plugins configured as before (they were left alone by the beta install) I now see a large pdf icon when a pdf file is selected, so that is fantastic. I did have to add a column and take away a column so they were reset during the install. I think the main point about the viewer is that it can be configurable so that those that want the view can have it and those that don't...
And that seems to be exactly what we have!
This is my first go at using dopus in other than the default way and it has been a good experience. I feel that I know one small part of dopus a lot better and I have a couple more things to explore without being too twitchy.
The update itself will not have changed your columns. That will be something else, and may happen every time you reboot or fully exit and restart Opus. (If so, see the Folder Formats FAQ for how to set up your columns so that they stick.)
