Feature Suggesting: Editing embedded images in external apps

[marc]

Something I'd like to see, post 2.5 I guess, is the ability to open embedded graphics in external applications.

Starting in the simplest way possible, I would see NWX allowing me to open an embedded file in whatever system default application I've previously defined (e.g. Open JPEG in Preview), as another option in the image contextual menu.

This would be useful for the lower end usage, to be able to open a file in it's native viewer, e.g. PDFs embedded at small scales, being shown at full size.

Further more, this could be a real boon in document creation, for instance allowing me to embed Photoshop files (which happily embed at the moment), and have the PSD contained within the RTFD opened and saved by Photoshop, so that I had full editing of embedded images.

The beauty of this method would be that those embedded files would be completely portable with the file, with no external files to forget to email, or copy to that USB thumb drive.

I guess in a sense, this sort of usage would mandate using the RTFD format over embedding and storing files directly within the RTF datastream. I would envision working on my files in the RTFD format, and sharing them as PDFs, rather than necessarily relying on the RTFD format.

I'm mainly talking about this as an editing-side only type of feature, and not expecting that I could easily share files in the RTFD format with Word users, but at the same time for a Windows user, shouldn't this simply appear as a folder with assembled images?

All of this seems like relatively little to add to the app in terms of features or code, but would IMHO add a lot in flexibility and capability.

In concert with LinkBack, this would add a lot to the ledger in term of NWX's interoperability.

Would anyone else find this useful?

[MikeKazlow]

It would be better to support, import by reference. You have to keep track of the files being referenced, but makes for smaller files, which are therefore less likely to cause problems.