>How can I display a small image preview of any document?
>
>I assume there is an API that does this since Windows Explorer provides this feature as you scroll thru documents. In my case, most of the documents will be PDF and WORD, but certainly not all.
Troy,
Windows Explorer uses ThumbCtl ActiveX control. You cannot use it directly in VFP form, but you could place it on HTML page and display this page in WebBrowser control. The DisplayFile method of this control displays thumbnail for selected file:
PUBLIC oForm1
oForm1 = NewObject("thumb")
oForm1.Show
RETURN
DEFINE CLASS thumb AS form
Height = 277
Width = 361
DoCreate = .T.
AutoCenter = .T.
Caption = "Thumbnail Preview"
Name = "Form1"
ADD OBJECT command1 AS commandbutton WITH ;
Top = 240, ;
Left = 276, ;
Height = 25, ;
Width = 73, ;
Caption = "Select", ;
Name = "Command1"
ADD OBJECT olecontrol1 AS olecontrol WITH ;
Top = 12, ;
Left = 12, ;
Height = 252, ;
Width = 252, ;
OleClass = "Shell.Explorer.2"
Name = "Olecontrol1"
PROCEDURE Init
ThisForm.olecontrol1.navigate2("d:\thumb.htm")
ENDPROC
PROCEDURE command1.Click
Local lcFile
lcFile = GetFile("*", "Select", "Preview", 0, "Select a file for preview")
ThisForm.olecontrol1.document.all.Thumbnail.DisplayFile(lcFile)
ENDPROC
PROCEDURE olecontrol1.Refresh
NoDefault
ENDPROC
ENDDEFINEwhere thumb.htm file looks like this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=unicode">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<OBJECT id=ThumbCtl1 style="LEFT: 0px; TOP: 0px"
classid=clsid:71650000-E8A8-11D2-9652-00C04FC30871 name=Thumbnail></OBJECT>
</BODY></HTML>
Notice that Office documents can be previewed only if they've been saved with an embedded preview picture. (There is a checkbox in the Properties dialog.)
