driving Freehand from external app?

[AndreaP]

Hi everyone!
Does anyone have any idea if you can drive Freehand MX from any ouside application environment (Director,Visual Basic,.net,Java....)?

Thxs and bye,

Andrea

[Dritalei]

Trying to do the same Andreas, but I'm kinda lost here....

Hope to one day be able to view freehand files/images within another
application/database. Have approx. 370 000 freehand files on the server, and
some times it takes ages to find a file if I don't have the file name. Have a
client/prod.order database but still we have to open everything in fh just to
check if the file is the right one etc etc.

Does FH clipart Viewer work with other apps?

There is a bunch of lovely people here on this forum, spending hours everyday
helping people like us.
Let's cross our fingers:)

Best regards

Bjorn
----------------------
Win XP Pro
3.2Ghz
2Gb ram
FH8-11.02

[David Plank]

I suppose you know that the Freehand MX installer CD has a FH
file viewer application. You can see what's in the file without
opening FH.

dp

Dritalei wrote:

> Trying to do the same Andreas, but I'm kinda lost here....
>
> Hope to one day be able to view freehand files/images within another
> application/database. Have approx. 370 000 freehand files on the server, and
> some times it takes ages to find a file if I don't have the file name. Have a
> client/prod.order database but still we have to open everything in fh just to
> check if the file is the right one etc etc.
>
> Does FH clipart Viewer work with other apps?
>
> There is a bunch of lovely people here on this forum, spending hours everyday
> helping people like us.
> Let's cross our fingers:)
>
> Best regards
>
> Bjorn
> ----------------------
> Win XP Pro
> 3.2Ghz
> 2Gb ram
> FH8-11.02
>

[Judy Arndt]

Dritalei,

Here's my strategy on a Mac. Some variation might work for you.

1. In FH Preferences > Export, save with a Portfolio preview. This creates a
raster image of the artwork on the first page of the document at 72ppi. I
don't know what's available on the PC version.
2. Use image cataloging software. On the Mac I use iView Media Pro. Open a
new, blank catalog.
3. Using the system Finder, search for a string that is likely to be in
filename.
4. In search results window, list by kind.
5. Drag all FH files resulting from search results window into catalog
window.

I now have a visual catalog of all files containing the search string.

Judy Arndt
--
FHMX 11.0.2 (Build 92)
Mac G4, OS 10.3.4
iView Media Pro 1.5.5


Dritalei wrote:

> Hope to one day be able to view freehand files/images within another
> application/database. Have approx. 370 000 freehand files on the server, and
> some times it takes ages to find a file if I don't have the file name. Have a
> client/prod.order database but still we have to open everything in fh just to
> check if the file is the right one etc etc.

[veeall]

this is what i do in win2000.
i have bunch of clipart in FH9 format from the v9 cd. in windows explorer menu
i choose view-thumbnails. windows can extract the preview bitmaps from fh
files.

also preferences options mentioned above work fine for changeing size of the
preview image generated by freehand.

[Dritalei]

Hi and thanks!

Probably a lot of view apps available which could be usefull.
I'll talk to our softw.dep. and see what can be done. There might be some
view-features that can be adapted in the database allready.

... but hey! don't forget Andreas initial question:

"Does anyone have any idea if you can drive Freehand MX from any ouside
application environment (Director,Visual Basic,.net,Java....)?"

I just hopped in here and kind of stole your thread. I'm sorry Andrea!
Never do it again.

Thanks again folks!
Bjorn