The system includes support for fast, read-only views of many file types when the user chooses the Quick View command from the file object's menu. This allows the user to view files without opening the application.
Note
For more information about supporting the Quick View command and creating file viewers, see the documentation included in the Win32 SDK.
If your file type is not supported, you can install a file parser that translates your file type into a format the system file viewer can read. Although this approach allows you to easily support viewers for your data file types, it limits the interaction options for your file types to those provided by the system. Alternatively, you can create your own file viewer, using the system-supplied interfaces. You can also register a file viewer for a file type already registered.
You can also support the Quick View command for data objects stored within your application's interface, either by supplying a specific viewer for your data types or by writing the data to a temporary file and then executing a file viewer and passing the temporary file as a parameter.