Re-open feature in foxit reader?

[std]

Hi!

I am looking for a light alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader and Foxit Reader looks close to what I am expecting.

However, I miss a "re-open" or "refresh" feature that would make my life easier when using it in compbination with pdflatex. Anytime I compile I have to reopen (open+browse) the pdf output. That would be great if there would be a (F-5) key-binding that would re-open the current file at the current point.

Thanks,
St.

[Andreasm82]

Good idea, I miss something like that, too. I often create PDF files with openoffice and sometimes the pdf file looks bad, so I must make some changes... using a F5 key would save time.

[Silo]

I second the request for a "re-open" feature! First time I have to read a 200+ page document and it stroke my mind instantly.

[DLohmann]

I also want to second this request! For everybody using LaTeX, LyX and so on a "F5" manual refresh feature and maybe an optional automatic refresh (on file change) would be just great. As FR does not lock the open files, it would probably also be relatively easy to implement.

More important for you guys: (Automatic) Refresh would be a unique selling point among PDF readers for Windows -- and instantly generate a lot of attention from a big community.

Daniel

[sprec]

This is not a reply, but a question:

I just installed Foxit and restarted the computer; but when I dowhloaded the instruction manual, it was formatted in adobe, not foxit; please advise

thanks

s percy

[Andreasm82]

sprec , please start questions always in new threads, thanks.

[vdlee]

I also want to second this request! For everybody using LaTeX, LyX and so on a "F5" manual refresh feature and maybe an optional automatic refresh (on file change) would be just great. As FR does not lock the open files, it would probably also be relatively easy to implement.

More important for you guys: (Automatic) Refresh would be a unique selling point among PDF readers for Windows -- and instantly generate a lot of attention from a big community.

Daniel

You are not the only one to ask for the refresh option. F5 would be an option, or an automatic refresh as soon as the reader is focussed again (which is the case for Ghostview), eventually after having asked if you really want to refresh (which is the case for the Context editor).

Please keep asking, it could not be too difficult to implement this in the Foxit-reader

Arie

[bmn2007]

I would really like to see that feature too.

[christina]

Thanks for your comments. I've passed your posts to our developer.

Mantis ID:3746

[chipw]

Thanks for your comments. I've passed your posts to our developer.

Mantis ID:3746

What is the status of this request? I just downloaded and installed the latest version and it still does not have the refresh option. This is going to prevent me from using FoxIt.

[christina]

:( It's still being in the to-do-list.

[Bionic-Badger]

You know, for LaTeX, you can always just compile to a DVI and use YAP to display it. It auto-refreshes if there are any changes. Then once you've got everything done, compile to a PDF instead.

[christina]

Our team know well how it functions. Hopefully it can be implemented soon.

[chipw]

Over a year and it hasn't been dealt with, doesn't instill any confidence in me regarding this software. Too bad.

[Sevec]

Our team know well how it functions. Hopefully it can be implemented soon.

Any news about this eagerly awaited feature?

Thank you for any info...

[christina]

Please see here http://forums.foxitsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=7456

[Iceman]

Hi all,

I have read this post, since I was looking for the F5 feature in Foxit, too. In the meantime I figured out a way to do it with the current Foxit version (at least in a restricted sense). This goes as follows:

You go to:
edit -> preferences -> documents

then you make sure:
"tabbed documents" -> unchecked
"allow multiple instances" -> unchecked

The result is as follows:
Suppose you just compiled some .tex file (with your Latex editor of preference) and view the .pdf output with foxit.
When you now edit something in the .tex file, compile it again and finally click on your "PdfView" button (which simply opens the .pdf of your current .tex file with Foxit), foxit will reopen and show the new version of your .pdf
(so you dont have to bother with millions of tabs or windows)

The main drawback is as follows:
-> Foxit does not remember you previous view

This means you have to find the page you were viewing every time again ... can be annoying on many pages docs. Moreover, you may have to zoom in/out to get a nice view.
However, I think this should be an easy-to-implement feature for Foxit. Acrobat reader can do it ... so it should be no prob for you Foxit guys (?).

I hope this helps someone!
Best wishes
-Michael

[christina]

Thanks Michael.

..........
The result is as follows:
Suppose you just compiled some .tex file (with your Latex editor of preference) and view the .pdf output with foxit.
When you now edit something in the .tex file, compile it again and finally click on your "PdfView" button (which simply opens the .pdf of your current .tex file with Foxit), foxit will reopen and show the new version of your .pdf
(so you dont have to bother with millions of tabs or windows)

I don't think this can be done, since the file was locked once it was opened by Foxit Reader, even by Text viewer.



....Acrobat reader can do it ... so it should be no prob for you Foxit guys (?).



How could you make adobe do that? Adobe locks the file too when it opens it.

[Bionic-Badger]

Locking a file does not necessarily imply that the file cannot be written to by another program. It just means a program has control over the file, and therefore it can grant access to the file (such as sharing). Here's a reference to how it is done at least on Windows (see the dwShareMode):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363858(VS.85).aspx

All you'll need to do is check if the file has been updated any time you need to read data from the file, lest the pointers be invalid.

[christina]

Thanks for that. I believe our developers are aware of it.
To develop this feature 'timely detect file' may need to be considered more especially for PDF Reader, since PDF is a more complex structured type. Any a glitch is possibly intent to incur fatal error.

[mageecoe]

Dear developers,

I downloaded Foxit Reader two years ago but soon abandoned using it simply because it could not automatically reload the page when I compiled my presentations using Beamer and PDFLaTeX.

There is huge potential for you to get attention to Foxit Reader by implementing this feature. At a large scientific conference I recently attended, an estimated 3/4 used the Beamer package for their presentations. The Beamer package relies on using PDFLaTeX. If the user then uses Windows, he craves a PDF viewer that automatically reloads at the current point when the file is changed. Almost every user of Beamer and Windows would turn to Foxit Reader then.

I just downloaded Foxit again, and I am truly disappointed that you after more than 2 years have not yet implemented this feature, which does not seem to be that difficult.

[christina]

I will forward your comment to our development team. Thanks.

[Hirsel]

As I just had the same problem writing my thesis I discovered that the easiest solution is to use GhostView as a PDF viewer.

GhosView is perfectly cabable of refreshing a changed pdf at the exact point where you looked at it (it can do this for ps as well).

So till Foxit will implement this feature I am going back to use GhostView (at least for pdflatex etc.)

Hope this helps someone!

[jk451]

I also HUGELY miss this feature. Foxit is otherwise absolutely unrivaled reader and this absence is a bit of an expectations miss.

Either this refresh-on-F5, or refresh-on-change (i.e. refresh when the viewed file changes) would help a lot of people. For technical and professional users, LaTeX is often the way they write docs, and usually everyone compiles their document after a while and sees how it looks, then changes it, views it again, etc.

The most visible evidence of how people miss this is the number of people, including myself, who have gone through all the registration fuss just to be able to post a "second that" in this thread, i.e. the number of 1-post members in this thread. This is not that common nowadays!

Please, give us a Christmas present. Please, please.

[christina]

Thanks for the post. I will forward your request to our team for reference.

[jdhein]

I see that this is a long-standing topic. There's probably not much point in me adding my thoughts, but here goes!

I switched to Foxit back when I was looking for a good solution to view .pdf files that were generated by LaTeX. As it has been mentioned many times before, it is part of the development process to compile and recompile ad nauseum, many times implementing minor tweaks and changes in an otherwise large document.

If I had the .pdf file open in Adobe Reader it would lock out the ability to modify it using pdflatex, and I could not recompile until I closed the file from Adobe. I found out that Foxit lets you do this, and (among many other reasons) I happily switched over.

Now, when I was first starting out, I was hurting for this refresh feature too. I know that I can use a .DVI viewer to quickly see changes (and I do - my latex editor has a great built-in one), but .DVI doesn't do well for images, especially TikZ images. All too often, I have to preview in .PDF to see the changes to images.

What I've come to do now is just close and reopen the file in Foxit. This is easily done with the mouse, but the keyboard shortut works well too: ALT-F, C, ALT-F, 1. This closes the currently viewed file, and then reopens it (provided it's at the top of the list of recently opened files). As for small changes within a large document, I have stuck a "scratchpad" section at the beginning where I can benchmark and test anything that requires .PDF previewing to build or modify. This avoids the problem of having to scan down into the document to find my changes, as they're being displayed at the very top. After the changes are to my liking, I move the content to its intended place. But this is all LaTeX stuff, and I am digressing from the topic at hand.

As for Foxit, since it's already possible to close a file and reopen it with a few keyboard keys, would it not be easy to simply do that operation on a single keypress, such as F5, as several other people have suggested? If this is easy, then would it also not be easy to tell Foxit to remember the current page, position, zoom, etc. of the file, and preserve that when the file is reloaded?

Some people have suggested the software auto-refresh when it detects an update in the file. I'm no programmer, but if I were to do it, and if there was no way of event trapping a modified file through a callback or something, I would tell the software to check each open .PDF for updates on regular intervals. Either that, or check all files for updates when the program regains the user's focus. Something simple, like compare the file's date to what it was when the file was first opened (or last refreshed).

I'm afraid I can't imagine what the technical problems mentioned in http://forums.foxitsoftware.com/showpost.php?p=28594&postcount=9 would be. Especially since this has been a long-standing issue. If it's the auto-refresh thing which is causing problems, then why not just implement the one-key refresh feature which remembers page, zoom, etc? Of course, I may just be oversimplifying the problem with my suggestions.

[christina]

Thanks for the post. Just post your thoughts, I will forward them to our team for reference.

[MarkusRabe]

I absolutely support such a feature. A christmas present would be nice. :-)

I discovered that version 2.2 of Foxit Reader remembers the right page and zoom after closing and reopening of a document. So in the meantime I can at least use this version ...