Quick view window below file panel and thumbnail view

[ghisler(Author)]

Indeed thumbnail view is planned for the next big update later this year. My current plans are to solve this via an additional function for lister plugins, something like

GetThumbnailImage(filename,width,height)

or so. This would return a bitmap of the defined dimentions, which could then be stored in a thumbnail database. The suggestions above are very good. Please let me know if you have any other good suggestions!

[pdavit]

Indeed thumbnail view is planned for the next big update later this year.

Good news! Thanks Christian!

Any plans for that copy-to-multiple-destinations feature?

[Hacker]

Lefteous,
OK, I see. As I understand it now you don't want it to be simply a "multiple-image viewer" but something closer to another TC panel with the usual file operations but with images instead of filenames.
IMHO as long as TC's plugin interface is as it is now, it'd be better to let it rest for a while. My personal recommendation would be for Christian to create another very simple plugin interface (or use the existing Lister plugin interface with some minor modifications) to get thumbnails of images in a dir and then draw these instead of drawing filenames. Then for instance Imagine could provide the thumbnails for files which TC requests and then TC does the rest of the job, as usual. (If this isn't exactly what you are suggesting in 3. anyways...)
My 2 Eurocents.

You cannot easily use the lister plugins to display thumbnails. You have to create a sub plugin system or write an adapter to use the plugin system.

Well, not if I understood you correctly. But if you just want to display thumbnails in quickview, you should be able to simply extract the dir where the requested file is in, check for all images, create one large image with all the thumbnails and send it to TC as "the" image.

Roman
[EDIT: Hoppala, this topic has another page...]

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

Indeed thumbnail view is planned for the next big update later this year. My current plans are to solve this via an additional function for lister plugins, something like

GetThumbnailImage(filename,width,height)

or so. This would return a bitmap of the defined dimentions, which could then be stored in a thumbnail database.

Great!

The suggestions above are very good. Please let me know if you have any other good suggestions!

Thank you.
The following suggestion is technical, but has a major influence on the user interface: Will you use a Listbox-Control for thumbnail displaying? Please do so! Items should be shown from left to right first and then from top to bottom. I know this is not the Listbox standard behavior, but it should be achievable using a ownerdrawn listbox. Such a control should have a vertical scrollbar only.
A ListView control provides all this, but is to slow.
The listbox multicolumn feature, used in "short view" is IMHO not very handy for a thumbnail view. A horizontal scrollbar and the unusal item order wouldn't be intuitive.

I created such a control some time ago. Download the prototype here. Use a (large) icl as parameter.
It's buggy, not optimized and unfinished, but should be good enough to make my above mentioned ideas more clearly.

I guess you have already decided to create such a control as ownerdrawn listboxes are used for all filelists in TC.

[ghisler(Author)]

Yes, I will use a listbox control but it will be using standard top to bottom, then left to right. Even with ownerdraw, it's not possible to change this behaviour - the locations of the items are defined by Windows itself. Of course it's possible to just re-sort the items, but then you have to add a lot of empty items to fill the unused space at the bottom...

[JohnFredC]

but it will be using standard top to bottom, then left to right

Well this is not good news. Literally every tool I use that displays thumbnails of files uses a left-to-right, then top-to-bottom paradigm.

I try to be as flexible as I can be with my work habits, but this difference is "way" down in my autonomic response unconscious and will definitely cause me confusion as I switch between tools.

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

Yes, I will use a listbox control but it will be using standard top to bottom, then left to right. Even with ownerdraw, it's not possible to change this behaviour - the locations of the items are defined by Windows itself. Of course it's possible to just re-sort the items, but then you have to add a lot of empty items to fill the unused space at the bottom...

In my example there are no additional items and I don't resort them. I just draw a single item for multiple thumbnails.

[Sheepdog]

Yes, I will use a listbox control but it will be using standard top to bottom, then left to right. Even with ownerdraw, it's not possible to change this behaviour - the locations of the items are defined by Windows itself. Of course it's possible to just re-sort the items, but then you have to add a lot of empty items to fill the unused space at the bottom...

Excuse me, because I don't know anything about programing or Listboxes. But even Explorer displays the thumbnails from left to right and top to bottom. I woud find it very inconvenient too if the display were otherwise.

sheepdog

[Lefteous]

2Sheepdog

Excuse me, because I don't know anything about programing or Listboxes. But even Explorer displays the thumbnails from left to right and top to bottom. I woud find it very inconvenient too if the display were otherwise.

Explorer uses a Listview control which is able to display items from left to right first and then from top to bottom without additional programming. Different views are a strength of listview controls.
A listview control has some disadvantages: It's quite slow and it's features and behavior differs from window version to window version.

[Clo]

2Sheepdog
Hello Stefan !

But even Explorer displays the thumbnails

• Explorer ? What is it ?

• More seriously : I checked the thumbnail-display mode in XnView, it's quite like you say,
* The first header rank from left to right,
* then the second rank below from left to right and so on…
- It's logical, and the least space-waster on the screen. I vote in favour !
• I tested too in UniView : it seems to be else (like Ch. Ghisler said), but it's very fast to set, hence I couldn't see surely in which order the thumbnails are displayed.

  V G
Claude
Clo

[Hacker]

BTW, I vote for horizontal display, too...

Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

I could switch to a Listview control from Listbox, but then I would have to abandon some features
- no more 16-bit version
- no more headers for sorting in brief view
- columns are limited to the width of their headers

I already took this route for the Windows CE version.

What do you think?

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

What do you think?

ListView? Hell no!

Why not drawing multiple thumbnail items into one column? It's requires a little bit additional handling, a new GetIndex operation and stuff like that, but I think the expenditure is manageable.

[ghisler(Author)]

I will consider it. Would you limit the displayed width to the window width, or window height? Or use a square virtual scroll area?

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

Would you limit the displayed width to the window width, or window height?

Im not sure, if I understand this question entirely. Here is an example: The folder has 10 items to display. If the listbox client width is 600 pixels and the user chose to display 96x96 thumbnails. This means 6 items in the first row and 24 pixels in width on right side unused. In the seconds row we have 4 items and 216 pixels in width unused. That means we have a total of 2 listbox items. All items are 96 pixels in height. From a programmers view this means in OnMeasureItem the height is set to 96. I hope this is what you ment.
In this example I didn't include space between items. Space between thumbnail items is another important thing to think about. Of course a listbox control doesn't support this. Speaking of space between items in a listboxcontrol always means virtual space between items. This means for the user it seems as if there is a free space between items, although there is none of course. The amount of free space should be configurable. Thumbnails needs a lot of space. Free space between items takes additional space.

use a square virtual scroll area?

Free space between items is also directly related to the square virtual scroll area. The behavior of such a square virtual scroll area should depend on the UseRightButton setting of Total Commander.
The left button setting means emulate explorer behavior as closely as possible. This means in this case left click and drag on space between items starts a new selection and erases the old one (modifier change this behavior).
The right button setting could be more powerful, because there is no danger to drag items with unwanted click and drag. This means right click and drag on any point in the listbox starts de/selecting. This could make empty space redundant when right click selecting has been chosen.

I will send you the source code of my partial completed thumbnail listbox control, which has been written for the discontinued "Thumbnail lister plugin" in the next days. I don't have access to the files right now ( Pfingsferien ). Maybe these files are useful for you anyhow.