DopusWorX is a viewer plugin for Directory Opus that enhances your file management experience by providing advanced viewing and editing capabilities directly within the application. This tool supports various file types, including Markdown with integrated math equations and diagrams, code files with syntax highlighting, CSV grids for data editing, HTML previews, and binary files in hex mode.
Key Features:
Markdown Support: Edit and view Markdown documents with live preview, split-pane editing, and support for LaTeX, AsciiMath, and Mermaid diagrams.
Code Editing: Syntax highlighting for over 150 programming languages, making it easier to read and edit code directly within Directory Opus.
CSV Grid Editor: Edit CSV files in a grid format with features like copy-paste and data validation, enhancing your data handling experience.
HTML Preview: View HTML files as rendered web pages and switch between source and preview modes for efficient editing.
Hex Inspector: Examine binary files in hex mode with an optional byte editor for precise modifications.
In-Place Editing: Edit files directly within the Directory Opus viewer pane, eliminating the need to open external applications.
Winget Integration: Easily install DopusWorX using winget, ensuring a seamless setup process.
Target Audience and Benefits:
Ideal for users who work extensively within Directory Opus, DopusWorX offers a powerful yet intuitive file management experience. Whether you're editing documents, working with code, or managing data in CSV files, this plugin streamlines your workflow by providing essential tools directly where you need them. By integrating seamlessly with winget and supporting a wide range of file types, DopusWorX enhances efficiency, reduces the need for external applications, and provides a seamless experience tailored to your needs.
README
DopusWorX
A document viewer and in-place editor that lives inside Directory Opus.
Markdown, maths, diagrams, code, CSV, HTML and binary files, rendered and editable right in the Opus viewer pane.
If DopusWorX is useful to you and you'd like to support the work, you can...
What it is
A native Directory Opus viewer plugin: a Windows DLL that renders documents in
the Opus viewer pane, the pop-out viewer window, and QuickShow popups. It is not
a separate app; it loads inside Opus and uses the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime
to draw itself.
Under the hood it is two layers, not just a web page in a window. The plugin
itself is a native C++ viewer DLL built against the Directory Opus plugin SDK,
which is why it works in the viewer pane, the pop-out viewer and QuickShow rather
than as a standalone window. WebView2 is only the surface it draws on: inside it,
CodeMirror and its Lezer grammars drive the source and editing views across
around 150 languages, markdown-it parses the Markdown, KaTeX and Temml draw the
maths, and Mermaid draws the diagrams. The hex inspector, the CSV grid, the spell
check and the theming are all written for this.
It is file-type aware: open a file and DopusWorX picks the right view for it.
Markdown gets Reading, Live and Source, with a split preview, and renders
maths (LaTeX / AsciiMath) and Mermaid diagrams inline.
Source-code files open in Source view with syntax highlighting (around 150
languages).
CSV / TSV open as an editable grid.
HTML renders as its own page, with a Source view and a split.
Binary files open in a hex inspector (offset / hex / ASCII with a data
inspector), with an opt-in byte editor.
Reading, Live and Source
For a Markdown document there are three ways to look at it:
Reading is the finished, fully rendered page.
Live renders the page too, but the moment your cursor lands on a line the
formatting marks for that line come back, so you can edit without dropping out
of the rendered view.
Source is the raw text. Click Source a second time and it splits: raw
on the left, live preview on the right, with a draggable divider you can slide
to resize the panes, and a toggle to link or unlink their scrolling.
You pick which of these a Markdown file opens in under Settings (Open markdown
in: Reading, Live or Source). DopusWorX also remembers the view you last used
for each file, and you can keep that always, turn it off, or have it expire after
anything from five minutes to a year.
ReadingLive
The split view. Click Source a second time and the pane splits down the
middle: the raw Markdown on the left, the live preview on the right, with a
divider you can drag to resize the two panes and a button to link or unlink their
scrolling.
A full formatting toolbar sits underneath: bold, italic, strikethrough,
highlight, inline code, links, footnotes, clear formatting, a heading button that cycles H1 to H6,
bulleted, numbered and task lists, indent and outdent, blockquotes, fenced code,
image insert, and a table insert with a size grid. Find and replace handles case,
whole word and regex, and Ctrl+G jumps to a line. There is
undo and redo with a history dropdown, and a live word, character and line count.
Insert a Table of Contents that keeps itself up to date as you edit (list style and title style are configurable in Settings), and fold whole heading sections away with the fold glyph in the margin.
Spell check underlines misspellings as you type in Live and Source, skipping code, links and URLs; English (US) is built in and more than fifty other dictionaries download once and are cached offline.
A right-click menu is there throughout, and you do not need a mouse for it: open
it from the keyboard and the arrows move, Home and End jump, Enter or Space
activate, and Escape closes; on a touchscreen a press and hold opens it. Press F1
anywhere (or ? in Reading) for a pop-up guide to every keyboard shortcut; it is
also in the right-click menu. Markdown documents (and CSV tables) can be printed
or saved as a PDF of the whole rendered document, colours and all, from the
right-click menu. The Print option is also in the Save menu for every file type.
Ctrl+P works from anywhere in the viewer. See
docs/06-context-menus.md for the full set.
The viewer keeps a back/forward history of the files it has shown - step through
it with the mouse back and forward buttons or Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right, browser-style.
Maths
Write it in LaTeX or AsciiMath, inline with $...$, on its own line
with $$...$$, or as an ```am block.
Auto-render reads each equation on its own and works out which style you
used, so you can mix the two in one note and not think about it.
The symbol panel (Σ) lets you browse symbols by category and drop them in.
It inserts to match your Maths syntax setting: \alpha in LaTeX and
Auto-render, alpha in AsciiMath.
Click into a rendered equation and the source comes back; click away and it
redraws. A live preview shows the equation under your cursor, and a convert
button rewrites it from one style to the other in place.
Slanted fractions (\sfrac, \nicefrac), eight maths fonts, and a choice of
KaTeX or Temml as the engine.
Define your own macros, either typed into Settings or kept in a file, so
your usual shorthands work everywhere.
Prices are safe: $5 stays as text, and \$ gives you a literal dollar sign.
The maths engine only loads on notes that actually contain equations, so plain
notes stay quick. See docs/04-maths.md for the full guide.
Diagrams
Turn a fenced ```mermaid block into a flowchart, sequence, class, state,
ER, pie, Gantt or any other Mermaid diagram type, drawn from plain text with Mermaid.
On by default; the ~3 MB engine loads only on a note that actually contains a
diagram.
Diagrams draw in Reading and Live. In Live, click a diagram to bring its
source back, edit it, and click away to redraw.
Match page colours diagrams from your active palette, so they match the
document and stay readable in light and dark. Or pin a fixed Mermaid theme.
A hand-drawn style, a flowchart edge shape, a diagram font and
size (the font can follow the body font or stand on its own), optional
label wrapping and sequence numbering, and a max-connections guard
for very large diagrams.
A broken diagram shows a ⚠ box with its source and the reason, never taking the
rest of the note down with it.
DopusWorX draws the diagram inline. With Match page the same diagram takes its
colours from the active palette, so it suits a dark page or a light one:
Dark paletteLight palette
See docs/08-mermaid.md for the full guide, with a live
example of every diagram type.
Code and source files
Source-code files open in Source view (there is no Reading or Live mode for
code, since there is nothing to render).
Syntax highlighting for around 150 languages (the common ones bundled, the
rest loaded on demand), with a line-number gutter, a word-wrap toggle and a
configurable tab width.
A copy button, an optional active-line highlight (with a magnify option that
lifts the line you are on), and a code-theme picker that is independent of the
page palette.
Colour values get a swatch and a colour picker, and diff and patch files colour
their added and removed lines.
Code files are fully editable, with a code-editing toolbar: toggle comments in
the file's own comment style, duplicate a line, move lines up or down, and indent
or outdent. Click or drag line numbers to select whole lines, and Ctrl-click to
build a multi-cursor selection.
Fenced code blocks inside a Markdown document are highlighted in every Markdown
mode.
Binary files
A file that is binary rather than text opens in a hex inspector: an offset / hex /
ASCII view with a side panel that reads the bytes under the cursor as integers and
floats. You can select byte ranges, jump to an offset, search for hex or text, and
copy as hex or text. An opt-in setting turns on byte editing, and any file can be
forced open with View as hex from the right-click menu. See
docs/09-binary-inspector.md.
CSV and tables
CSV and TSV open as an editable grid: click a header to sort, double-click a cell
to edit, add or delete rows and columns with undo and redo, select and paste
blocks of cells, filter, freeze the first column, override the delimiter, and copy
the whole thing out as a Markdown table. Column widths, delimiter and zoom are
remembered per file, and an untouched file saves back byte-for-byte identical.
HTML
HTML files have a rendered View, a Source view of the raw markup, and a
split that shows both at once.
Rendered viewView / Source split
Themes and palettes
Thirty built-in palettes, dark and light, from Dracula and Nord to Catppuccin,
Everforest and Rosé Pine, alongside the signature ProWorX and GloWorX. By default
a palette follows the Opus pane background automatically; you can pin one instead.
Nothing is locked down. The visual editor lets you change any colour and save it
as your own named theme. Bold, italic, strikethrough and inline code each get
their own colour, headings can be coloured per level, and the page surface,
rules, borders and shadows are all yours to tune. See
docs/07-palettes.md for a card of every palette.
Markdown extras and Obsidian syntax
Full GitHub-flavoured Markdown: tables, task lists (tick the boxes in Reading or
Live), footnotes editable in place, definition lists, abbreviations,
mark/highlight, and sub/superscript.
Obsidian-style linking and embeds work too:
[[note]] wiki-links, including [[note#heading]] and [[note|alias]].
![[note]] transclusion and ![[image.png]] image embeds.
The Obsidian image alt syntax for size and alignment:  and
. Relative paths and Windows absolute paths resolve.
This works inside table cells too, with the plain pipe and no escaping, e.g.
|  |.
Frontmatter and the banner image
Add a banner: line to the YAML frontmatter at the top of any note and
DopusWorX renders that image as a full-width strip across the top of the
document. In Reading mode the frontmatter block is hidden entirely; in Live mode
it shows as the banner image from the moment the file opens - click it and the
raw YAML comes back for editing, move away and the banner renders again.
Right-click any markdown document and choose Set banner image to search for a
picture without leaving the app: type a word, press Enter, and click a result. In
the picker, drag the preview strip up or down to choose the vertical crop and set
a pixel height for this file alone, then click Set. DopusWorX writes the
banner:, banner_y: and banner_height: frontmatter for you. The global
banner height is set in Settings under Content › Images.
Customise it to your liking
The Settings dialog is organised into clear tabs, Appearance, Content,
Toolbars, File types and About, with live preview and a plain-language
note on each option. The Content tab groups its options by concern, Opening &
views, File reading & saving, Markdown rendering, Images, Code & source files,
Diagrams, then Maths. Among the things you can change:
Auto-hiding toolbars. Set the top toolbar or the formatting toolbar to slide
away and reappear when you reach for them, so the document gets the whole pane.
Toolbar layout. Drag the formatting buttons into the order you want, or hide
the ones you never use.
File types. Decide which extensions DopusWorX handles. Pane previews a
type in the viewer pane while browsing (double-click left alone); DOpus also
opens it in the DopusWorX window on double-click inside Opus; Explorer also
associates it with Windows so it opens from Explorer even when Opus is closed.
A Highlight Grammar column sets which grammar each type uses, so you can
open .tpl as C++ or map any type to any of the supported languages.
Maths macros, fonts and engine, encoding and fallback codepage, image
search folders, auto-save, separate left and right page margins, gutters,
formatting marks, and the full type and colour controls behind the palettes.
Zoom any view from 50% to 300% with Ctrl and the scroll wheel or a trackpad
pinch (or the right-click Zoom submenu); each view keeps its own level and the
toolbars stay put.
Careful with your files
A viewer that edits your files has to be careful with them, and a lot of the work
here went into exactly that.
Your edits survive. Writes are atomic (a temp file, flushed, then a single
atomic replace), so a file is never left half-written. An empty buffer will not
overwrite a file that has content. If Opus closes or crashes with unsaved work,
a recovery copy is kept under AppData and offered back when you reopen.
No silent overwrites. If a file changes on disk while you are editing,
DopusWorX notices, and tells the difference between a real change and a harmless
touch by comparing the content, not just the timestamp. You get a clear choice:
keep your edits, save a copy, or reload.
Remote images stay private. Off by default, an image referenced by an
http(s) URL renders as a placeholder and makes no network request at all, so a
remote server cannot learn you opened a document that points at it.
A hardened updater. The in-app updater talks HTTPS only, checks every
redirect against an anchored allowlist of the real release hosts (so a
look-alike domain gets nowhere), and refuses to install anything whose SHA256
does not match the published hash.
Tidy on your system. The viewer DLL writes a single HKCU registry value
(LastPaneBg under HKCU\Software\HyperWorX\DopusWorX) to remember the
Directory Opus pane background colour across restarts; beyond that it writes
nothing to the registry. Its settings, themes and cache all live under your
profile.
Staying up to date
DopusWorX checks for new releases from inside Settings and can fetch and install
an update for you, gated by the security checks above. Releases are published on
the Releases page.
File types and views - what each kind of file does, and how DopusWorX is file-type aware.
Editing - the modes, the formatting toolbar, find and replace, and saving.
Maths - LaTeX, AsciiMath, the symbol panel, fonts and macros.
Diagrams - Mermaid flowcharts, sequence, class, state and more, plus the diagram settings.
CSV grids - sorting, in-cell editing, filtering, freezing, delimiters and more.
Context menus - the right-click menus, driven by keyboard or touch as well as mouse, and the Save menu.
Palettes - every built-in palette and the Appearance settings.
Binary inspector - the hex view, the data inspector and the opt-in byte editor.
Installation
Download DopusWorX_v_Setup.exe from the
Releases page and run it.
One UAC prompt and it does the rest: closes Directory Opus, installs the plugin
into the Opus Viewers folder, and starts Opus again. It registers in Apps &
features, so removing it later is the normal Windows uninstall. Windows may show
a SmartScreen prompt the first time, as it does for any new unsigned download -
More info, then Run anyway.
Prefer a zip? DopusWorX_v.zip on the same page holds the identical
plugin with plain Install.cmd and Uninstall.cmd scripts you can read before
you run them. Extract it anywhere, run Install.cmd, accept the UAC prompt.
For an unattended or scripted install, the setup exe takes /VERYSILENT, and
the zip scripts take /silent (or /quiet).
Requirements: Windows x64, Directory Opus 13 or later, and the Microsoft Edge
WebView2 runtime. WebView2 is already on most up-to-date Windows installs; if it
is missing, DopusWorX shows a download link in the pane.
Opening Markdown on double-click
Out of the box Opus opens a .md file with whatever Windows has associated. To
open it in the DopusWorX viewer instead, point the Markdown file type's Left
double-click event at the Show command under Settings ▸ File types
(covering md markdown mdown mdwn mkd mkdn). The File types panel in the
DopusWorX settings can set this up for you.
The samples/ folder has sample documents. Start with
dopusworx.md, a single manual and exhibition of the
Markdown and maths features, then open the CSV, code, HTML and multilingual files
beside it so every view has something to show straight away.
