Quick View Plus from www.avantstar.com

[bookman]

I have been a long time user of the venerable Norton Commander even until today. I know that xplorer2 is not meant to be a clone.

However, I have been on the look out for a replacement.

One of the key features for a replacement is that it can do a quickview of a file using the Quick View Plus (Quick View Plus is the “big brother” to Quick View as it enhances and expands Quick View’s functionality) with the Crtl+Q command and this done exceedingly well in Norton Commander even though it has not been updated for years.

Quick View Plus can be purchased from

http://www.avantstar.com/stellent/intra ... usOverview

I tried to intergrate Quick View Plus with xplorer2 by using the Tools, Option by using it as an external viewer.

Unfortunately, that means Quick View Plus needs to be called up by using Crtl+F3, that is Quick View Plus does not function like a native viewer in xplorer2

In Norton Commander, the integration is complete, ie, it functions like a native file viewer. If I highlight a file in one pane in Norton Commander, the viewing pane shows the file such  as a picture, spreadsheet, or word file and I'm able to see whatever of the 225+ formats that Quick View Plus supports. And I can just move from file to file in the other Norton Commander pane and the viewer will show what's in the file in the other preview pane. Real neat.

And that's without using Crtl+F3 to call up Quick View Plus (like I have to do in xplorer2). Because doing Crtl+F3 takes me into another program interface (in this case Quick View Plus interface) and out of the xplorer2 interface which is not what I want.

Can anyone help ? Thank you.




The following is a cut and paste from the Norton Commander help.

-------------------------
About Quick View Plus

Quick View Plus is an add-on systems utility that significantly enhances the Quick View function in Windows  to give users almost unlimited file sharing and organizing capabilities. Both are based on award-winning Outside In viewer technology from Inso Corporation, the leader in viewing technology.
Quick View Plus is the “big brother” to Quick View as it enhances and expands Quick View’s functionality. In addition to the basic formatting features supported by Quick View, Quick View Plus adds support for such features as typeface, type size, line spacing, embedded graphics, and objects. While Quick View enables users to view files in about 30 of the most popular formats, Quick View Plus allows users not only to view files in over 200 formats, but also to copy and print them with full formatting intact. The ability to read and manipulate all popular word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation and graphic files, as well as PKZIP, without regard to their native format, makes it much easier to communicate and work with others.

Take the Norton Commander to new horizons.

When you use Quick View Plus with the Norton Commander, you add to its powerful tools to keep your drives and directories organized: preview and clean-up old documents easily; look quickly at files before recycling or deleting them; copy, backup, rename, move and e-mail files with confidence.
In a Norton Commander panel, highlight any file name and choose View from the Files menu, pr press F3. Instantly, you see a fully formatted view of the selected file in the View window.

You can move the selection bar up or down with the Arrow keys and view one selected file after another.
Seamless integration with the Norton Commander and the NC Network Utilities make Quick View Plus instantly available for viewing all your files
--------------

[nikos]

clearly this quickview plus was specially integrated with norton commander
but i think it is no longer developed (?) like norton commander
at any rate you can't integrate it with x2 that's for sure

have you tried the "normal" preview tab in xplorer2 pro? that shows more file formats than the draft in lite version

[bookman]

Actually Quick View Plus is being actively developed.

In fact it is the file viewer used by www.x1.com, the developer of the Desktop Search engine used in Yahoo Desktop Search which has come up the winner in many comparisons against Google Desktop Search and MSN Desktop Search.

It is also used by www.filenotes.com a very interesting file manager which allows you to add file notes to files. I often find that I cannot remember what the file I downloaded is for after a few weeks when I visit shareware or freeware sites. Filenotes solves this problem for me.

There's another Quick View Plus competitor calls itself the best alternative to Quick View Plus, acknowledging that Quick View Plus is a leader.

http://www.novatix.com/redwall/

You will find there is also a Quick View Plus Partner program
http://avantstar.com/intradoc-cgi/idc_c ... amOverview

Anyway, Quick View Plus is essentially the big brother of the lite version that came bundled into Microsoft Windows just like Diskeeper is the big brother of the defragmentation utility that is bundled into Microsoft Windows.

And both the "big brothers" are miles ahead of the lite version.

Which also reminds me that maybe I can find my solution in xplorer2 Pro

Anyway, do check out www.avantstar.com

[bookman]

I did a little little more research on who else uses Quick View Plus and PowerDesk Pro and Directory Opus uses it too.

Now this is where it gets interesting when you combine it with Yahoo Desktop Search which is free and comes with the Quick View Plus viewers.

An extract from their forum :

"tip on how to get the QVP viewers free with the Yahoo Desktop Search tool. This will provide alternative and standalone viewer support for Office documents, PDF files, and so on."
http://resource.dopus.com/modules/mydow ... id=2&lid=9

And the solution and why it's done this way :

http://resource.dopus.com/modules/newbb ... 18&forum=9

Hopefully this may help get the creative juices moving.  :D

[nikos]

that sounds interesting, thanks

[bookman]

A step or 2 further :

I examined the relevant directories for the three programs that I have that uses the viewer files, namely

1. Quick View Plus bought standalone (but integrated with Norton Commander through one of its options)
2. The Quick View filters that came incorporated with Yahoo Desktop Search
3. The Quick View filters that came incorporated with File Notes (file commenting program - actually it does quite a lot more, but I use it only for file commenting)

The filters in 2 and 3 above are practically for all purposes identical except for 4 dll files with the same names but just very small differences in file sizes - just probably version updates.

I think I practically can just synchronize folders in 2 and 3 with the latest files and probably have no problems. I think the files are just filters for different file types which I may or may not use at all.

1. and 2. show many more differences and some identical filters (the program was bought much earlier as it also have a program interface)

2. and 3 are much more recent installations and reflect current filters.

Anyway, it's best you ignore :
1. Quick View Plus bought standalone
Since it does not make $en$e to ask your customers to buy Quick View Plus standalone when it is free with Yahoo Desktop Search (and in fact more updated as well)

But if you could write a plugin to utilitise the free Yahoo Desktop search filters - that would just be plain heaven and put xplorer2 an extra cut or two above other File Managers.

I guess you are the expert here and you can easily go to Yahoo Desktop Search site and download a free copy for mucking around with.

In fact in the earlier thread of a work around, it was even mentioned by the posted that Yahoo Desktop Search could be uninstalled (for those who do not want it) and the useful filters will still be available.

-----

Another different point on the Filenotes program from www.filenotes.com

It's key strength is that it detects changes in certain directories where I save files like in my download directory, or my usual Word documents directory where I can save my word processing files etc so that I can add comments to the file such as (where the file is downloaded from, or some special comments about why I save a particular version of a Word file etc). This is saved to a searcheable database. This becomes very useful to jolt my memory later on, which is quite often.

It uses a file monitor to do the monitoring when files are saved, a dialog pops up to allow you to add a comment. And even when I move the file with say Windows Explorer, it detects the movement and attaches a small comment file to it.

If there are many files in a directory with comments, there's a single comment file for that directory.

But besides using Filenotes for comments and to search the comments database, I do not use the Filenotes program for much more.

All my file copy and move, delete etc is done with Norton Commander or a Norton Commander clone.

If somehow you can integrate the "free viewers from Yahoo Desktop Search" and a file commenting feature (even without the auto file save detection) xplorer2 would in my mind be THE One and Only Killer File Manager one would ever need (Period).

[nikos]

the pro version of x2 already has all the text searching capabilities present in all these desktop search tools -- of course it isn't instant but then again it doesn't consume any cpu maintaining file content indexes and such

also, if your files are on NTFS partitions, x2 can attach comments to them -- even the lite version does that & offers a special column so you can see comments in detailed mode. You can search in comments too (pro version only)

i think you'd gain a lot checking out the manual

[bookman]

Hi

I made a startling discovery !

Quick View Plus actually works with xplorer2 Pro which I just installed.

I don't know how. But if you show me how to add a picture to this post or you provide me with an email and I will send you a screen capture. I'm trying to figure out what I did.

I cannot figure out how to upload a picture to the forum.

[nikos]

are you sure it's quickview plus and not internet explorer?
i don't think you can upload pictures here, just provide a URL for the pic (or email it to me!)

[fgagnon]

for posting pictures, see this board FAQ.  
(Basicly, you can only link to images that you put on a publicly available server elsewhere.)

[bookman]

Yes, I'm absolutely 100% sure it's Quick View Plus (in xplorer2) in the preview window (Normal Tab) but not in draft preview. You will be able to see it in my screen capture of xplorer2 Pro. Have not tried out on xplorer2 lite yet. Hmm, where can I find your email address.

[bookman]

One more thing, I installed explorer2 lite initially and then xplorer2 Pro.

Now even if I execute the xplorer2.exe in the Xplorer2_lite directory, xplorer2 Pro will execute.

ie I cannot get back into the lite version - so I cannot tell you if the Quick View Plus viewer also works in the lite version.

[fgagnon]

sounds like the same behaviour as discussed here .
(whatever plugin that IE finds will be used to preview the associated filetype in the 'normal' tab)

[bookman]

Thanks fgagnon

Quick View Plus indeed has the ability to integrate with Internet Explorer and has been set as such.

So I think that explains it.

One quirk I find is that each time I move the cursor with the down key to the next file when I preview in Normal mode is that the focus moves out of the file listing pane somehow and I have to Tab to get back to the file listing folder. This is not the case for draft mode preview.

Am I doing something wrong ?

The advantage of Normal mode is that format  supported in Quick View Plus works perfectly as far as I can tell now in xplorer2 Pro. But now I must Tab (an extra step)

The funny thing is that on some files like zip and gif does not seem to use Quick View Plus even in Normal mode. How do I know ? - 1. There's no loss of focus in the file listing pane. 2. The Label Quick View Plus does not appear on the top left of the Preview Pane.

Somewhat puzzling.

And in Normal mode, it previews Pdfs not with Quickview but with the filter I downloaded from adobe which your program directed me to do when I install xplorer2 pro

[nikos]

sadly when IE previews the document using in-place activation (activeX) it eats the focus as you've observed

i hope to find a workaround but in the meantime we have a glitch!
(personally i use the mouse in such cases to click on the next file)