Hello,
I am evaluating GroupDocs Viewer and it is quite hard to test due the limitations that the free version has (e.g. only 15 views in an hour).
So I am planning to add a preview component into my Digital Asset Management system. The assets can be stored in different locations: inside the website, Amazon, Azure, CDN …
Can I dynamically setup the filelocation to the Viewer so it will render the file from the location I am passing to?
If so, will you please direct me to the documentation / example that describes it?
In order to evaluate all the features of the API without any limitation, you can request a free temporary license which would be valid for 30 days. For details, please visit here.
Yes, GroupDocs.Viewer allows you to work with the remotely located files/documents by configuring third-party storage like Amazon S3, Azure etc. You can also work with a file by providing its URL. In order to guide you further, we would like you to mention the platform (.NET or Java) you are interested to work in. We shall be looking forward to hearing from you.
Is there any list with instructions about how to integrate the viewer into a MVC project?
I did not find any info about the general architecture but it looks like the viewer is accessing an external API. Does this mean, the files that the users want to preview will be transferred on your servers via API and converted there?
In fact, GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET is a stand-alone, backend and UI less document rendering API that enables you to render the document in a viewable/displayable form. The API provides Html based rendering and image-based rendering.
Html based rendering: In Html based rendering, the API generates the Html representation of each page of the source document. You can easily manipulate the Html content of each page and save it as an Html file.
Image-based rendering: In image-based rendering, the API converts each page of the document into an image (PNG, JPG, BMP). You can easily save the image to your desired location and display it in your application to view the content of the document.
As the API provides the back-end features of document rendering and it does not contain any built-in UI, therefore, you will have to create your own front end application to display the rendered Html pages or images. Furthermore, GroupDocs.Viewer also allows you to render the document as PDF document.
We have also developed an open source document viewer application (in ASP.NET MVC) using GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET. You can download this application from here. To learn more about this open source document viewer application, please visit this documentation article.
As I mentioned previously, GroupDocs.Viewer is a backend API (available as a DLL) that allows you to render the source document in the form that can be viewed/displayed in the front end application. The documents that you want to preview can be located on the same machine where the application is running or they can be stored at external storage i.e. Amazon S3. GroupDocs.Viewer provides the IInputDataHandler interface to configure the external storage. You will find this documentation article helpful for the integration of external storages.
In case you would have any other question, please feel free to let us know.