Launch PDF's into Acrobat

[Sivakatirswami]

OK, let's maybe back up from this and draft the simple functional spec 
first without making any decisions on the the technology yet... (other 
than that we use revolution to drive the front end....)

1) We have PDF documents on a web server comprising PDF's of issues of 
our magazine, each PDF doc contains all pages of an article: 1 page 
articles are single page PDF's, a feature story might run to 8-10 page 
PDF, fairly "heavy" 2 pages stories are 2 pages... etc.

2) we want to deliver a standalone Revolution application that provides 
access to the above, with a nice rich set of feature on the interface,

3) The primary one being, to read the current issue of the magazine.

4) a background HTTP GET loads the issue's table of contents into a 
field and pokes a custom prop with the URL's to the pages in the TOC,
(save to external prefs file on quit.)

5) User clicks on one article in Table of Contents, Rev Downloads the 
PDF...is prompted if she wants to read now or off line later etc.

then what: I mean in terms of letting the user decide how to view the 
PDF... Is there a cross platform system prop for "default PDF viewer" 
that we can dig from the local host.  Perhaps we need to let the user 
set up his environment?

Prompt: "Please locate the application you use to view PDF's"

Problem: "Naive" (I prefer this to "dumb") users are already lost... as 
was noted in other threads... the level of expertise of some people 
using computers on a scale of 0 to 100 lies not infrequently somewhere 
in the .0002 to 1.5 range (smile) really, I am amazed at times, how 
what what I think is obvious in a UI completely escapes certain 
types...

In this case, they may have simply no idea how pick the application 
that would be used as their default PDF viewer... I think you meant "I 
really [hate] the programs that open an application if it isn't the one 
I would normally use."  Right, point well taken, I think we all find 
that behavior somehow "abusive" in a subtle way.

So, then, (he scratches his head, pulls his whiskers) if not Acrobat, 
but "my PDF default" what is the solution?

SKTS

On May 15, 2005, at 12:55 PM, Sarah Reichelt wrote:

> It's important that you don't force people to use Acrobat if that is 
> not their default PDF viewer. I'm not sure how you go about finding 
> what IS their default but I really the programs that open an 
> application if it isn't the one I would normally use.
>
> Sarah