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Preview for custom object type with file?

Andrew Taylor

Hi Craig and all,

We have a vault with 100ks of objects of a custom type which have a file.  Users are complaining of having to expand the object and select the PDF to have it open in the preview.  We've found that the auto-open in preview is only supported for objects of type Document (and Document classes).  Starting out from a descendent of Document would have been the easy way to address this, but it's a bit late now.  It's a very complicated object model with several deployment and reporting customizations which rely on the object type we are using.  Moving from one type to another would also be confusing for the users.  So, migration from the custom type to a Document descendent would be very difficult and we're looking for an alternative where we can continue to use the existing custom type. 

Is it possible to enable the auto preview functionality to a non-Document type?  Would a UIX customization be possible to detect selection of a custom type instance, resolve the file and open it in the Preview pane?  If so, any documentation on interacting with the Preview pane?  Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

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  • 0

    Hiya Andrew, did you ever find a solution to this? We are currently researching if it is possible to programmatically open a specific file for preview when selecting a related non-document object.

  • 0 in reply to Fred_

    In UIXv1 it was possible.  I had some sample code at some point (one of the first samples I wrote when I joined, but it didn't seem to get into github).

    The idea was you reacted to the selection event and then it created a custom dashboard or popup which embedded the preview control and passed it which file to show.  In the sample it simply popped open a window which could then be docked to another screen and the preview would update as you moved through selections.  I think some people customised it further to show - for example - specific documents when a project was selected.

    Unfortunately I don't think the preview control is available - at least right now - in the same way in UIXv2.

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  • 0 in reply to Fred_

    In UIXv1 it was possible.  I had some sample code at some point (one of the first samples I wrote when I joined, but it didn't seem to get into github).

    The idea was you reacted to the selection event and then it created a custom dashboard or popup which embedded the preview control and passed it which file to show.  In the sample it simply popped open a window which could then be docked to another screen and the preview would update as you moved through selections.  I think some people customised it further to show - for example - specific documents when a project was selected.

    Unfortunately I don't think the preview control is available - at least right now - in the same way in UIXv2.

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