Maya drag and drop scene file behavior

[Anonymous]

If I drag a scene file and drop it into maya, it does a file import.  Is there a way to change this so it does a file open instead?  Ideally I could control this with an option within the maya session.

We are running maya 2018 (and for now 2016) on Windows.

Thanks!

[zhong_wu · Accepted solution]

I did a quick searched and I did not find an easy way as you expected to customize the drop/drop operation to open file instead of import, but if you are interested in C++ code, I found Maya provided a callback way to help you hook into Maya’s drag-and-drop mechanism. 

The classes MExternalDropCallback/MExternalDropData were introduced in Maya 2013, check here:

• MExternalDropCallback - This class will be used to register callbacks to gain access to Maya's drag-and-drop information when dropping external objects into Maya. You can replace or augment this drop behavior for external drag-and-drop operations.

• MExternalDropData - This class represents the data carried within a drag-and-drop operation when dragging from an external application. This class is used by MExternalDropCallback.

There is also an example at http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2018/ENU/?guid=__cpp_ref_external_drop_callback_2external_drop_...  to demonstrate how this is supposed to use. I think that might be something you are interested, but requires more C++ skills.

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

Thanks for you answer, this sounds perfect!  I am conversant with c++, but I'm just getting started with the maya API.  I will give this method a try.

[stezzaboy]

I was just searching for why I can't drag and drop a scene into the viewport to open it, just doesn't allow it.

Any ideas why?
Maya 2019.