XYplorer Beta Club

admin wrote:Is it true that Vista/Win7 natively previews DWG and DWF files? I heard so...

zer0 wrote:

admin wrote:Is it true that Vista/Win7 natively previews DWG and DWF files? I heard so...

Not so. Just downloaded one of each and could not get them to preview.

admin wrote:Thanks for trying! I assume AutoCAD has to be installed to make it work (or do you have AutoCAD?).

zer0 wrote:

admin wrote:Thanks for trying! I assume AutoCAD has to be installed to make it work (or do you have AutoCAD?).

Installed AutoCAD 2010 and DWG files can now be previewed in Explorer, but not DWF.

admin wrote:

zer0 wrote:Oh, cool. So next XY version will support DWG thumbs and preview.

    + Full Screen Preview/Thumbnails: Added file formats DWG (AutoCAD
      Drawing Database File) and DWF (Design Web Format File).
      Note: This is Vista/Win7 only (unless you install 3rd party shell
      extensions) since the Vista/Win7 shell natively offers thumbnail
      previews for DWG and DWF files (which means XYplorer can do it as
      well).

zer0 wrote:

admin wrote:

zer0 wrote:Oh, cool. So next XY version will support DWG thumbs and preview.

Changelog for the .0109 says:

Code: Select all

    + Full Screen Preview/Thumbnails: Added file formats DWG (AutoCAD
      Drawing Database File) and DWF (Design Web Format File).
      Note: This is Vista/Win7 only (unless you install 3rd party shell
      extensions) since the Vista/Win7 shell natively offers thumbnail
      previews for DWG and DWF files (which means XYplorer can do it as
      well).

I mentioned that installing AutoCAD does not grant WE the preview abilities for DWF even though that file type can be opened by AutoCAD. Therefore, does that mean that in the latest beta XYplorer can do a particular something that WE is unable to?

Also, you're saying that Win7 shell natively offers thumbnail previews for DWG and DWF, while I reported that it does not for either. I'm confused

admin wrote:Well, I found a couple of references to Vista's DWG/DWF preview in the web, and you are only one (are you?). So that's just good old stupid democracy: the majority wins. Can be confusing sometimes, I know.

zer0 wrote:

admin wrote:Well, I found a couple of references to Vista's DWG/DWF preview in the web, and you are only one (are you?). So that's just good old stupid democracy: the majority wins. Can be confusing sometimes, I know.

I'll try to get hold of a Vista machine to test that theory on. However, I was talking about Windows 7, not Vista. Is there the same majority? I know that both of those OSes are using different thumbnail API compared to Win XP et al but their implementation may differ.

admin wrote:AFAIK Win7 is just a renamed Vista service pack, so I would not expect any major differences here. It probably depends more on the Autocad installation/version.

zer0 wrote:

admin wrote:AFAIK Win7 is just a renamed Vista service pack, so I would not expect any major differences here. It probably depends more on the Autocad installation/version.

Au contraire, mon frere! The changelog says XYplorer (and Win7) support natively. This means that no installation of AutoCAD is required. Just like with JPEGs, Windows natively supports their thumbnails without you having to install Photoshop CS4. So are you sure you mean natively or after an installation of AutoCAD? Those two are not the same.

P.S. Since DWF is a proprietary file format, I don't think M$ would have licensed it just for previews. That being said there is a PNG file thumbnail in each DWF archive (a DWF file is essentially a very compressed zip file). Likewise with DWG, it's a very restricted file format, with licensing of the libraries for the viewer particularly strict.