Grid with File Preview (custom layout) in Acrobat X Pro Portfolios

Question

In Acrobat 9 Pro, there was a Portfolio layout called Grid with File Preview. We use it as our primary layout for PDF portfolios because it allows users to rapidly view PDFs within a portfolio. This was our primary reason for using Portfolios. Unfortunately, this important feature was removed in Acrobat X Pro resulting in clunky and very slow PDF viewing within a portfolio.
Is there a custom layout which emulates Grid with File Preview?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

PDF Portfolios arrived out of the blue with Acrobat 9 and have been somewhat of an experiment - Acrobat contains some to get you started, but by also releasing the SDK it was hoped that the Flex programming community would have provided an ecosystem to support Acrobat users who wanted more choice - so just as you can buy or download hundreds of  templates for websites, you could find them for Portfolios too.
Unfortunately it hasn't happened, and the technological landscape  has changed dramatically in the past three years - the rise of HTML5, dominance of tablets/iOS, security concerns and  Adobe's repositioning of Flash in the marketplace have all affected the commercial viability of Flex as a career, and consequently the availability of free third-party Portfolio layouts. It would have been nice to see a vibrant community of people sharing their designs, but the reality is that the majority of custom PDF Portfolios are created for enterprises as part of their brand identity, and there is an obvious cost involved in hiring one of the small number of expert programmers (of which Joel Geraci is the #1) to do the work.
Adobe has never claimed that the layouts which ship with Acrobat were the best/only way to do things - just as with the default presets in Lightroom, they're examples of what can be done. With Acrobat X it became easier for non-programmers to style the layouts (via Themes) but there's no escaping the basic fact that making a layout itself is a Flex programming job, and not one you'd attempt as your first chunk of code.
When Acrobat 9 launched, I saw pretty equal levels of complaints that the bundled layouts were too boring and too flashy. The target was shifted in Acrobat X to a less corporate style, but again people loved and hated them in equal measure. Given how much work is involved in writing and testing each layout, you can't expect Adobe to release a version for everyone.
There were legitimate  reasons why the bundled layouts from A9 weren't included in AX. Speaking personally I don't expect my assessment to change: Portfolios may stick around, they may not - it depends on a mountain of bigger questions about Web standards, device popularity, politics and economics which Adobe have no control over.