Stellent viewers.. what exactly are they?

[PaladinMJ]

I know obviously they let you view things but whats so unique about them? I have heard them talked about indirectly a lot lately and feel like I don't get the whole conversation. like i know dopus uses them and x²? can you add more are they that revolutionary? wikipedia has nothing on them and a Google turns up more of the bandying that got me to try to research them.

[Lashiec]

Darwin usually raves about them, so I'm sure he can tell you more about the viewers. My guess is that it's something akin to the old QuickView in the older versions of Windows. Actually...

Multiview is an Opus plugin, but it doesn't do anything without the Stellent viewers, which are available in a number of ways (as part of QuickViewPlus, as part of PowerDesk, as part of Yahoo Desktop Search, and as part of the X1 stuff.) How you obtain them is up to you. I've heard that you can make a copy of the Filters folder and then uninstall the actual X1 software, but whether it works or not I couldn't say.

-the DOpus forum

... so they must QuickView successors. I like to know where do they come from though...

[Carol Haynes]

<irrelevant pedantry>
Yahoo Desktop Search is X1
</irrelevant pedantry>

[PaladinMJ]

wow.. I thought for SURE I'd get more info than i could digest in response to this query. Oh well, can't get them all. If I find any info I'll post it to this thread so as to be of possible help to someone else in the future

[tinjaw]

Darwin usually raves about them, so I'm sure he can tell you more about the viewers.

-Lashiec (March 24, 2008, 10:53 AM)

PM Darwin. I am sure he wouldn't mind. In fact he probably just overlooked this thread and would be happy to reply via the thread if you ping him about it.

[PaladinMJ]

Darwin usually raves about them, so I'm sure he can tell you more about the viewers.

-Lashiec (March 24, 2008, 10:53 AM)

PM Darwin. I am sure he wouldn't mind. In fact he probably just overlooked this thread and would be happy to reply via the thread if you ping him about it.

-tinjaw (March 26, 2008, 09:42 AM)

ok pm away... lol

[Darwin]

  - sorry PaladinMJ  - I did indeed miss this thread, but your PM got my attention!  Incoherent raving follows:

If you have an application that can use the Stellent viewers and would like to see what the fuss is about, follow the X1/Yahoo Desktop Search tip as it does work. This involves installing either X1 or YDS and then moving the "Stellent" folder out of the X1/Yahoo program folder, uninstalling X1/YDS - if you wish- and then directing whatever application that you wish to use them with to that location. I know that XYplorer, Dopus, and X2 can be configured to use the viewers, but am sure that there are others.

What makes them so great? Well... what I like about them is being able to view the 300 supported file types without having to invoke the associated application, like Word or Excel. This has two benefits - speed, as you're not opening multiple RAM and CPU intensive programs just to view a document, and security, as any nasties that shipped with the documents aren't opened. So, if someone e-mails you something, or you want to view a file that you've found online, you can save it to a location on your harddrive and view it's contents - with the formatting retained - efficiently and safely. If you spring for the Avanquest front end for the viewers - QuickView Plus ($39.95) - you can set it up to do this automatically from Outlook or your browser, so that you don't have to save the files first.

Hope this is helpful.

[Curt]

I am still left somewhere in between darkness and light:
is a stellent viewer just another word for a pre-viewer
- like my tooltips letting me read the content of a text file ??

[Darwin]

Here are a couple of screenshots, both using Dopus 9 and the latest Stellent viewers courtesy of QuickView Plus 9:

Word document

Stellent viewers.. what exactly are they?

Excel file

Stellent viewers.. what exactly are they?

NOTE: I was going to use a screenshot of XYplorer previewing the Excel file, but as I was about to post I realised that it seems to hook into QuickView Plus... so am not sure if it will actually use the Stellent viewers on their own, though I don't see why it wouldn't...

[cmpm]

http://pro.x1.com/?source=Yahoo

Hey, nice, and not too bad-$50.
If you have a lot of stuff I'm sure it's worth it.

[PaladinMJ]

ok that makes some sense now. I've used quick view plus since version 2 and have loved it. Though now I'm still trying to decide D.Opus or X2. I like booth but can only justify supporting one. But instead of hi-jacking my own thread I will start a new one after I've read all the related threads available on DC. Now where is my license for QVP??

[cmpm]

http://www.kalio.inf...p_Search_Comparison/

there's a comparison

this is probably on that best desktop  search thread but i haven't read it

[Curt]

Now where is my license for QVP??

-PaladinMJ (March 27, 2008, 03:51 PM)

Outside USA the prices are in between of $52 and $65 for 1 'PC home-user' copy of QuickView Plus version 10. Version 9 was $52 including the CD. I cancelled my order...

[f0dder]

So, basically stellent == quickview?

This has two benefits - speed, as you're not opening multiple RAM and CPU intensive programs just to view a document, and security, as any nasties that shipped with the documents aren't opened. So, if someone e-mails you something, or you want to view a file that you've found online, you can save it to a location on your harddrive and view it's contents - with the formatting retained - efficiently and safely.

-Darwin (March 27, 2008, 11:16 AM)

Ho humm, unless the viewers are based on all-new-code, they could still be affected by security flaws associated with the filetypes... Might be safer than, say, firing up office, but I wouldn't feel 100% safe just because I'm using "quickview" and not the full app.

[CWuestefeld]

unless the viewers are based on all-new-code, they could still be affected by security flaws associated with the filetypes

-f0dder (March 27, 2008, 07:01 PM)

I think it's a pretty safe guess that they ARE based on a separate code base. It's pretty unlikely, I think, that MS would have given them the Office file loading code (as one example).

[Darwin]

Thanks for the post, Curt. I have QV Plus 10 installed, not 9... As for the pricing - crazy! DId you try selecting US dollars as the currency for the transaction?

[Curt]

US $ . One thing, though, is that the prices that I found for version 10, started at $46 + VAT, not at $40. We really should try to get a rebate for DC, or maybe QuickView Plus 10 is just one of those programs that doesn't come cheap, so to speak... (lots of pun intended).


edited for spelling

[Darwin]

Ouch! You're right, Curt. They've upped the pricing for this version. Foul play in my opinion! I thought $39 was steep... I guess it depends on how much you think you'd use the Outlook and browser plugins. There are some competing products, but to my knowledge they're all at a similar price point (or higher), feature fewer viewers and aren't as "slick". I'm also unclear on whether or not the alternatives work with Dopus and other File Management options.