Thumbnail previews?

[9-Ball]

Hi folks,

I'm just testing this tool (XnView) as I am looking for something that will facilitate the display of image thumbnails within Windows 7, supporting less common formats. For example, I have folders with many .dds and .tga format images that I need to be able to preview within Windows Explorer without opening in the actual program or another. I had thought this tool would do that based on reading the features list but either I was mistaken in that or am missing how to achieve this. Can anyone offer advice on how to achieve that either with XnView or any other tool that can do it? Regardless, I'm impressed with XnView's other features and will find it very useful.

[JohnFredC]

Hi 9-Ball

Make sure you enable the setting: Options->General->Operations->Display all image file types.

Both DDS and TGA are in the list of supported formats which you can see at Options->Associations.

[9-Ball]

Hi John,

thanks for taking the time to reply. I did make the change you recommended but it didn't achieve my desired aim. I fear I may be misunderstanding something here - I was hoping this app would enable thumbnail previews of .dds and .tga files within Windows Explorer, i.e. integrated within the shell, not just within XnView itself. While XnView does a beautiful job of that, in an ideal world I don't want to need to open XnView to see the file previews. Does XnView have the capability to meet this need or not? Again, thanks for your time.

[JohnFredC]

Oh, I misunderstood. Sorry, I don't think XnView can be used to render thumbs in Explorer, but stand ready for someone to correct me.

However, if you were to abandon Explorer for Total Commander (an altogether better file manager) XnView can be used to render the thumbnails. In TC, you can decide which outside resource is used to render which thumbs.

If you are not familiar with TC, don't be put off by its somewhat archaic appearance. It's functionality far exceeds that offered by Explorer. For instance, it supports free 3rd-party plugins for user-defined data columns in the file listings and you may choose from any of them to customize the lines beneath the thumbnail labels.

Not promoting TC, per se... just sayin'.

[XnTriq]

SageThumbs - Thumbnail image shell extension
“SageThumbs is a powerful shell extension allowing to preview enormous amount of image formats directly in Windows Explorer by using Pierre-e Gougelet's GFL library (XnView's author).”

I found this open soure shell extention that adds thumbnail support for 19 file types in Windows Explorer.
http://www.seriema.net/thumbview/

I never tried that one, but MysticThumbs is one that can't be missed.(with 64 bit support !)