Lister plugins don't allow to switch to RTF view

[DrShark]

I don't consider RTF as multimedia, it has its own checkbox in the Lister settings dialog.

Well, that checkbox is on "Multimedia" tab in "Multimedia display" settings group. And what matters even more, unlike "Show HTML as text with links" and "Show links in HTML with surrounding { }" settings which are also there, RTF view uses 3rd party control (Rich Edit), so if on some file it will make Lister hang or crash, Alt+Shift+F3 in pure text mode could still be a way to see raw content of that file.

[ghisler(Author)]

Sorry, I will not change it. RTF is some kind of text view, so the user would expect that Alt+Shift+F3 still uses it.

[Usher]

RTF is less text file than HTML is. RTF may contain binary data, sometimes even saved as binary rather than us-ascii hex code. It's described in RTF specification, see http://www.biblioscape.com/rtf15_spec.htm

An RTF file consists of unformatted text, control words, control symbols, and groups. For ease of transport, a standard RTF file can consist of only 7-bit ASCII characters. (Converters that communicate with Microsoft Word for Windows or Microsoft Word for the Macintosh should expect 8-bit characters.)
(...)
An RTF file can include pictures created with other applications. These pictures can be in hexadecimal (the default) or binary format.

On the other side, HTML file can also contain embedded pictures, but only as text encoded with Base64. Lister in both RTF and HTML cases provides similar kind of parsed text view – without pictures, but with some text formatting. So when talking about "text format", Lister should use the same key 5 for both RTF and HTML files, I think.

What is more, I think that users expect that Alt+Shift+F3 gives default raw view for text/binary file rather then formatted/parsed view which is available with F3.

BTW. In Windows XP you can't see properly formatted RTF view for files with binary data. You can keep pressing 4, but it only blinks with proper RTF view and than displays raw text formatted as RTF (using formatting keywords for font face, style, size etc., for example Time New Roman bold 12pt). Binary data aren't displayed, though they may contain UTF-16 text.

[petermad]

What is more, I think that users expect that Alt+Shift+F3 gives default raw view for text/binary file rather then formatted/parsed view which is available with F3.

I agree on that.

[ghisler(Author)]

Alt+Shift+F3 has opened RTF view for many many years without causing a single complaint. I'm sure I would get many complaints when I changed that now, so I won't. If it bothers you, just disable RTF in the Lister settings.