Cannot avoid thumbnail on folder

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ericonhisway
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:40 pm

Cannot avoid thumbnail on folder

Post by ericonhisway »

Hello,

I am trying to either avoid the thumbnail of a picture that is in a folder to show on the folder icon itself, or choose one of my pictures to show on that folder.
No matter what I do in XnView or Explorer, the thumbnail always appears, and no matter how many times I try to change the folder icon to any of the icons
in the SHELL32.dll, or to one of my pictures (right-click from the folder , properties, customize, choose file), the original thumbnail (from one of the pictures in the folder) reappears.
However, if I go to Options, Browser, Thumbnails, Appearance, and toggle "show 4 thumbnails...", it does show either 1 or 4, but not zero (plain folder icon),
even if I also uncheck "show thumbnail ...".
Am I missing an option ? As none of my files are read only, why can't I choose my own icon/file ?

Thanks
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helmut
Posts: 8704
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2003 6:47 pm
Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Re: Cannot avoid thumbnail on folder

Post by helmut »

ericonhisway wrote:... Am I missing an option ? As none of my files are read only, why can't I choose my own icon/file ?
Thank you for your detailed problem report, ericonhisway. I guess the problem is that XnView draws the large folders itself and when doing so, does not consider that an icon or image was set for this folder. Not sure whether Windows has an interface to read the icons/image set, if so Pierre might add support for user-defined folder symbols and images. So your "bug report" is more a request: "Support for Windows folder icons and folder images".

Just to double check: What happens if you change view in browser to "Icons" or "Details" (menu "View > View As > Icons"). Do you see your folder image/icon, then?
ericonhisway
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:40 pm

Re: Cannot avoid thumbnail on folder

Post by ericonhisway »

What happens if you change view in browser to "Icons" or "Details" (menu "View > View As > Icons"). Do you see your folder image/icon, then?
Hi Helmut,

when I view as icons, I indeed can change the icon using the 'change icon'.
However, when I view as thumbnails and I right-click on the folder icon/image, then properties and customize, I have the option
to 'choose a file to show on this folder icon'. This doesn't work in either 'view as icon' nor 'view as thumbnails'.
In 'view as thumbnails', it seems that whatever I do, the folder icon/image consists either of the first image found in the folder,
or if the 'show 4 thumbnails ...' option is selected, the icon consists of 4 thumbnails. This is fine, but what I am looking for is
to have the option to choose 'Don't show thumbnails on the folder icon'. Basically, the folder would look identical to the ones
that don't contain a picture, in which case they show a large folder thumbnail with no picture.
Note that this is just a wish and is certainly low priority. It looked to me that, with the existing right-click and menu options,
it would readily be possible.

Thanks for your response.
User avatar
helmut
Posts: 8704
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2003 6:47 pm
Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Re: Cannot avoid thumbnail on folder

Post by helmut »

ericonhisway wrote:... when I view as icons, I indeed can change the icon using the 'change icon'. ...
O.k., this confirms that I did understand your problem. The large thumbnails are custom-drawn, not sure how difficult or easy it is to look-up the Windows custom icon and draw it. It might be a good addition, though.
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