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How the universal viewer works?

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    How the universal viewer works?

    Hello,

    Im a Functional Application Specialist from the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

    I am writing a research article on the importance of universal viewers and how they can be used in the preservation of computer files.

    Can you please tell me the technical basis of how the universal viewer works? How does it identify the various supported file formats and view them in the viewer?

    Any information would be very helpful, I am having a tough time finding information on how universal viewers actually work.

    Thank you

    gurpb99@gmail.com

    #2
    Identifies jpg files via its file header:



    There you can find more information about hex values, file headers

    I guess IrfanView just looks for the file header to decide what type of file it is

    Stefan

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      #3
      okay so basically, every file contains a header and the information in the header identifies what type of file it is.

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        #4
        That is correct. Programs that only handle specific file types -- word processors, for example -- will not open anything with the wrong header; usually only a few file types are associated with the program and it will handle very little else. But most software that is capable of opening multiple file types can open any file with a header that it can recognize, regardless of extension or lack of it. This is, of course, far different from what a hex editor does; that is, showing the underlying code rather than interpreting it and displaying an image or text file.

        IrfanView deals with executable files (dll, exe, etc.) by displaying icons contained in them. It is, after all, an image viewer, not a truly universal viewer.

        However, IV can be very useful in sorting out files that have no extension, or a wrong extension. I have often used it to find images in a browser cache where files are otherwise hard to identify. With the right settings, its thumbnail browser will show all image, PDF, and video files in a cache.

        I think that a universal viewer might be very useful in dealing with collections of old file types that are no longer in use.
        Last edited by matera; 14.10.2011, 02:04 AM.
        Its: Belongs to "It"
        It's: Shortened form of "It is"
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        Lose: Fail to keep
        Loose: Not tight

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        Plurals do not require apostrophes

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          #5
          This information is very helpful. One last questions if you have time, so we understand that the viewer needs to figure out the file type, but once it does that, how does it render the file? How does the file rendering work?

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