DWG Preview is NOT Available in Windows File Explorer Preview Pain
I recently installed BricsCAD on a new Windows 10 computer and immediately noticed that the drawing preview was no longer provided in Windows File Explorer.... lived with it for a while but finally issued a support request.... Thanks to the BricsCAD support team for their rapid reply:
Dear Lance,
neither BricsCAD nor Windows Explorer have a default dwg preview handler :-)
It is only AutoCAD which installs a preview handler, which is active after AutoCAD / LT / DwgViewer installation …
maybe you have one of those installed on your old machine ?
many greetings
Torsten Moses
Indeed I did have an old version of AutoCAD Map installed.
I installed Autodesk's free DWG TrueFiew. A mere 2.1GB download but it solved the problem.
Hope this helps anyone who encounters this problem or who wants to have DWG thumbnails appear in Windows Explorer preview pane
Comments
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Make that Pane - but it indeed was a Pain
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Jlance,
I have to admit, I am mystified by this whole preview issue.
When initially creating a Windows program wouldn't you make sure you could preview the file in Explorer as most software does as one of the first things you build into your software?
The preview that you get when opening not just Bricscad but other CAD/Graphics software is about as much use as a Kamikaze Pilots reunion party!
With all the processing/RAM power now available, you would think this would have been solved a long time ago.
I remember some software I used to use back in the DOS days that was part of an add on to Autocad that allowed you to have a FULL SCREEN PREVIEW of each file and it displayed it as quickly as you pressed a key!
Not only that it was a true preview as it didn't open the drawing directly, so you could just go to the next file and do the same with literally instant full screen display.
Unfortunately this software no longer exists, but it shows what is possible with just 4mb (yes 4 megabytes) of RAM!
Having said all this I'm sure there is a very good reason why this can't be done.
Cheers,
David
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do we have a update on this?
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Well, on Mac, there is no Bricscad Finder Preview at all.
This would be a great update to add this to Mac
Vectorworks does this, so it should be possible.
Maybe it is a bit hard as many cross platform Apps forgot about
providing file previews on Mac....0 -
I agree this would be a very useful item to have native in Bricscad. A preview is so helpful as you look for go-by drawings to use.
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Hear, hear.
Often it occurs that one is browsing with Windows Explorer through a folder hunting down for something where the title of the drawing isn't descriptive of the actual contents. Especially when coming from 3rd parties. When we used acad that was really a neat little feature. As soon however that I made Bricscad our standard program to open any .dwg we lost the preview ability in the windows preview pane.
Having Trueview installed doesn't do a thing for me concerning the preview pane.
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As a workaround you could try using the folders section of the Drawing Explorer (EXPFOLDERS), or the the Content Browser (CONTENTBROWSEROPEN).
A neat new tool with V18 is DWGCOMPARE, which allows you to compare two drawings with each other. Useful if you are trying to work out what has changed with files received from others.
Regards,
Jason Bourhill
CAD Concepts0 -
Another potential workaround: BKG_Browser.
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