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Phoenix Viewer and Open with
Look at a file without opening the editor: the Phoenix Viewer plays documents and SWF movies and shows artwork and images in a window of its own. On Windows you can reach it, and Phoenix itself, straight from File Explorer.
The Phoenix Viewer
The viewer is Phoenix with only the stage: no panels, no timeline, nothing to edit. It opens quickly and leaves the file just as it was, which makes it handy for going through a folder of old movies, checking a published SWF, or showing a file to someone.
| File | What the viewer does |
|---|---|
Phoenix documents (.phx), FLA files, XFL folders (DOMDocument.xml or .xfl) | Plays the document as Test Movie does: at its frame rate, with its sound, its ActionScript running and its buttons answering the mouse. |
SWF movies (.swf) | Plays the movie the same way, scenes, sounds and scripts included. |
Artwork: SVG, Illustrator (.ai), EPS and PostScript, PDF, Photoshop (.psd, .psb) | Shows the art on a stage fitted to it. |
| Images: PNG, JPEG, GIF and BMP | Shows the image on a stage its size. |
In the viewer window:
- Restart plays the movie again from its first frame.
- Pause holds the movie where it is, and plays it on when you click it again. While it is paused, Step plays one frame.
- Drag the time slider to go to another frame of the scene.
- Keys you type go to the movie, so games and interactive pieces work as they would in a player. Esc closes the viewer.
- The window can be resized and maximized; the stage scales to fit it.
To change the file, open it in Phoenix itself: the viewer never saves anything.
From File Explorer (Windows)
When Phoenix is installed, and again each time it updates, it tells Windows about the files it opens. It does this for your user account only, so no administrator rights are needed, and it only takes over the files that are its own: .phx. For everything else it adds itself as a choice and leaves your default apps alone.
Open with
Right-click a file in File Explorer and choose Open with:
- Phoenix opens the file in the editor. It is listed for
.phxand.flafiles. - Phoenix Viewer opens the file in the viewer. It is listed for every file the viewer shows:
.phx,.fla,.xfl,.swf,.svg,.ai,.eps,.ps,.pdf,.psdand.psb.
If Phoenix is not in the short list, choose Open with › Choose another app and look under More apps.
View in Phoenix
The same files also get View in Phoenix on their right-click menu, which opens the viewer in one click. On Windows 11 it is in the full menu: right-click the file and choose Show more options (or hold Shift as you right-click).
Make Phoenix the default
Double-clicking a .phx file opens it in Phoenix. For other files Phoenix does not change which app opens them, but you can:
- Right-click a file of that kind, for example a
.swfmovie, and choose Open with › Choose another app. - Pick Phoenix Viewer to view files of that kind with a double-click, or Phoenix (for
.fla) to edit them. - Click Always (on Windows 10, tick Always use this app, then click OK).
To undo it, choose another app the same way, or change it in .
Uninstalling Phoenix takes all of these entries away again.
The entries are made by the installer and its updates. A copy of Phoenix built from source or copied to a folder does not add them; run it with --view instead, as below.
From the command line
Phoenix --view movie.swf
Phoenix --view logo.svgOpens the file in the viewer, on any system. This is the command Open with › Phoenix Viewer and View in Phoenix run, so you can use it in your own scripts, file manager actions or launchers too: on macOS and Linux, point an "open with" entry of your file manager at Phoenix --view. Anything the movie's scripts print with trace() goes to standard error. See Command line for the rest of what Phoenix does without a window.
Phoenix drawing.flaOpens the file in the editor, as Open with › Phoenix does.