Providing a SDK/Lib for viewer app

[ashf]

I think it would be beneficial for Serif and Affinity users to prove a SDK/Lib for viewer apps to 3rd party developers.
So viewer/DAM apps can show high-res preview of Affinity files.

[Affinityconfusesme]

maybe we will get these when we get scripting/plugin support hopefully within the next couple of months.

[Léonce Aklin]

This would be amazing! Also, imagine apps like DaVinci Resolve and Blackmagic Fusion could add native support for Affinity files like they do with PSD files, maybe even with layer support. That would be like Adobe dynamic link but with support for third party apps.

[fde101]

Bear in mind that even minor version updates to the Affinity apps break file compatibility.  If such an SDK were offered and a viewer app was built to support files from version 2.9 (picked at random), then as soon as 2.10 came out, you would need to choose between updating to 2.10 to take advantage of its improvements but losing support from the file viewer app until that app is updated with a newer SDK, or staying on Affinity 2.9, potentially losing compatibility with files from trading partners who *have* updated, until the viewer app is similarly updated.

The one way around this is if the SDK uses components from the Affinity apps themselves, requiring them to be installed for the SDK to work - that would mean the viewer app could support displaying files from the Affinity apps only if at least one of the Affinity apps (of a compatible version) is installed on the system.  If the communication between the SDK and the app is reasonably stable between versions, that could allow compatibility with the same files as the installed Affinity app(s).

[v_kyr]

On 12/4/2023 at 10:28 PM, ashf said:

So viewer/DAM apps can show high-res preview of Affinity files.

Well if it's just for a preview, they can do so without the need of an explicite SDK, they just have to scan for the in Affinity files embedded PNG file preview part. So pretty much what on macs the QuickLook bundle option does. If it's hi-res depends here on the way Affinity apps do itself store the PNG preview part inside their proprietary files.

 

On 12/4/2023 at 11:23 PM, tzvi20 said:

maybe we will get these when we get scripting/plugin support hopefully within the next couple of months.

That's of not much value here for third party apps if you don't already own any Affinity app then, as that sort of scripting then comes only along with the apps and always will need some Affinity app to be preinstalled in order to make any use out of it. - Meaning, any scripting will here be coupled to the Affinity apps and not decoupled from those so the scripting can be generally independently used.

[Léonce Aklin]

2 hours ago, fde101 said:

Bear in mind that even minor version updates to the Affinity apps break file compatibility.

Good point. How did Adobe solve this with PSD files? Are there rasterized "previews" embedded in the files (even for text paths and so on) that so many third party apps can read them even without any SDK?

I know that Illustrator files have a PDF version embedded unless you deactivate it. I suppose it would be clever to embed something similar into Affinity files to make them viewable without having to worry that much about version compatibility.

Edited January 16 by Léonce Aklin

[v_kyr]

43 minutes ago, Léonce Aklin said:

I suppose it would be clever to embed something similar into Affinity files to make them viewable without having to worry that much about version compatibility.

Well Affinity files do already contain a PNG thumbnail image portion inside them. One has just to binary scan/parse for that (or all) PNG portion in Affinity files, extract those and show them up in an third party apps image preview portion.

 

[walt.farrell]

28 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

One has just to binary scan/parse for that (or all) PNG portion in Affinity files

As I understand it, one doesn't even need to scan. One can use standard OS-supplied functions to extract the supplied thumbnail from the Affinity files.

[v_kyr]

16 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

As I understand it, one doesn't even need to scan. One can use standard OS-supplied functions to extract the supplied thumbnail from the Affinity files.

Namely?  - And how do you think the OS does that task at all then, aka extracting preview images out of proprietary file formats it doesn't have any clue of.

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Namely?  - And how do you think the OS does that task at all then, aka extracting preview images out of proprietary file formats it doesn't have any clue of.

I don't know the details, but Serif have said that standard OS-supplied functions for locating thumbnails work with the Affinity applications. I think one post mentioned that a specific DLL is involved on Windows, and I presume that macOS has standard functions for this as well that Finder would invoke.

[v_kyr]

17 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I think one post mentioned that a specific DLL is involved on Windows, and I presume that macOS has standard functions for this as well that Finder would invoke.

Well for WIN I didn't looked after that, but for the macOS Finder I've already know and told before above that there is a common QuickLook plugin supplied with the Affinity apps (...which resides inside the app containers). But that's only supplied by the Affinity apps (as far as you've installed any of the apps) and so nothing you can really independently make use of in third party apps, when no Affinity app is installed on your system. - What I've sketched instead above is the way to be generally independent of that, so you don't need to have any Affinity software (or Affinity supplied lib) installed and used, just in order to get a preview image from one of it's custom proprietary files types.

In short: you usually don't need any Affinity app, or custom Affinity lib, just in order to get a plain PNG preview for *.af* files.

[Léonce Aklin]

I think the currently embedded PNG previews have such a low resolution that they are insufficient for a DAM let alone other apps where the files could be embedded as part of a document.

Eagle btw. is an example for an app that already has viewer support for Affinity files through these embedded previews (but as I said with a very low resolution).

[ashf]

Yes embedded preview is not useful.
Too blurry to see high-res documents

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, ashf said:

Yes embedded preview is not useful.
Too blurry to see high-res documents

That's more a matter how the Affinity apps themself do include and write them in, which is possibly here done as an low-res image in order to keep their generated own files smaller. - Though it's up to them to change that on users demand and to include higher resolution preview images then here. However, but I doubt they will offer an explicite SDK for their proprietary file formats for several known reasons.