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• • Owen Greaves

    Participant

    # 1 year, 9 months ago

    Howdy,

    I can’t get any file to open in the browser or an app regardless of the extension’s listed.

    I want to click on the file and have it open either in the browser or an app on my computer, like word processor or spreadsheet app. Is this not possible within the plugin?

    I purchased this week the following:

    1.) WP Customer Area – Additional Owner Types

    2.) WP Customer Area – Enhanced Files

    3.) WP Customer Area – Front-office publishing

    4.) WP Customer Area – FTP Mass Import

    Do I have what I need for what I wish to do?

    Thanks,

    Owen Greaves
  • Thomas

    Keymaster

    # 1 year, 9 months ago

    Hi,

    The Enhanced Files add-on adds the possibility to do that.

    In Settings > WP Customer Area > Private Files > General settings > View inline.

    There you can specify which file types the browser should to open directly in the browser instead of downloading them.

    However, opening files inline requires that the browser support the filetype. If the browser cannot display the file inline, it will be downloaded instead.

    We recommend that you convert in this case the files to .pdf format, which is commonly supported by the browsers, while .xls or .docx aren’t.

    Best regards.

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    • Owen Greaves

      Participant

      # 1 year, 9 months ago

      Thanks for the info, but .pdf files don’t open either. They do in other environments but not in the plugin environment. I thought I might be missing something.

      Owen
    • Owen Greaves

      Participant

      # 1 year, 9 months ago

      OK, .pdf files open when I click the Download Button, most people won’t get that….is possible to make a URL in the description that would open say any file with an application association?

      Thanks,

      Owen
  • Thomas

    Keymaster

    # 1 year, 9 months ago

    Hi,

    I think you are getting confused between what are private file posts, and attachment files.

    When you browse the “My Files” page, what you see is the private file post that will host many information, such as description, category, custom fields, and of course, the links to the attachment files.

    WP Customer Area doesn’t include any feature that allow you to view a file directly into the private area, like in an embedded frame. Instead, you have to click the attachment link, inside the private file post, and the system will determine if the file could be opened in a new browsezr window, or if it needs to be downloaded (depending on your settings and your browser’s capabilities).

    However, you could for instance edit the templates used to display the items of the “My Files” page, and add a download button there. This would require a bit of basic coding knowledge (HTML + PHP). The process is explained in the template system documentation. You’ll also find required functions you could use to get the attachment URLs and display a download button everywhere you need in those items (functions located in customer-area/src/php/functions/functions-private-files.php, function cuar_get_the_attached_files()).

    The templates you would need to copy and edit are located in customer-area/src/php/core-addons/customer-private-files/templates.

    is possible to make a URL in the description that would open say any file with an application association

    There is no possibility to open a file with an application association when you download a file (that would be a huge security issue by the way…). Each user have differrent environments, differrent applications installed on their computer. There’s no way to force a downloaded file to open with a specific application till the system has no way to know which app are installed on the current user’s computer.
    The method described above will simply allow you to add a download button on the “My Files” page, for quicker access (so you users don’t especially need to browse the Private File Post to view the attachment link). However, this will not allow you to view the file directly into the private area (WP Customer Area doesn’t include such feature), and will also not allow you to automatically launch an app on the user’s system to automatically open the file with. Once the attachment file is downloaded, the user would still need to click the downloaded file to let it open with its own installed applications.

    Best regards.

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    Rate & review the plugin on WordPress.org 🙂