I've encountered a problem with thumbnail display. Normally, I wouldn't write about this if XnView MP simply failed to show thumbnails created by third-party tools - but the issue only occurs with file extensions listed under the Custom Filter.
Today, ChatGPT recommended installing Icaros to enable thumbnails for AV1 and HEVC videos, both in Windows Explorer and in XnView. After installing it, I noticed that CBZ and CBR were enabled by default. That gave me the idea to try generating thumbnails for ZIP files as well - and it worked. However, those thumbnails didn’t show up in XnView at first. After some digging through the settings, I managed to make them appear.
It turns out that if you go into Custom Filter and remove "zip" from the "Archives" section, the thumbnails finally show up.
- Icaros and Zip.jpg (451.66 KiB) Viewed 113 times
There’s one big drawback though: once you remove ZIP from the Archives section, ZIP files can no longer be opened like folders, they instead open with an external program.
I believe this is an issue on XnView’s side. Other thumbnails from Icaros work perfectly - AV1 and HEVC thumbnails show up as expected. In fact, XnView even displays video durations on thumbnails, which File Explorer doesn’t.
This leads me to believe the issue lies in how XnView handles thumbnail display for archive files. Maybe it's because "Show as Thumbshells" is unchecked for archives? I’m not sure.
I understand this is an edge case involving a third-party thumbnail generator, but overall integration works fine. The problem is limited to archive settings.
I don’t know how things work internally, but maybe thumbnail handling is completely disabled for archives to optimize performance because the program doesn’t expect archives to have thumbnails. But if that’s the case, I’d really like to have an option to enable thumbnails for them.
Icaros works perfectly. it doesn’t generate thumbnails for archives that don’t contain images. XnView also shows standard icons for such archives, and only shows thumbnails for those with images.
Previously, I avoided using archive formats due to the lack of thumbnails, and just launched CDisplayEx via hotkeys in XnView. But with thumbnails now appearing, things have become much more convenient.
If I could both see thumbnails and open ZIP files as folders, I’d definitely start using archives a lot more. So I’m kindly asking you to consider fixing this issue since XnView seems to work just fine with Icaros-generated thumbnails in principle.
P.S.
It just occurred to me to add jpg to the archive extensions. Indeed, thumbnails disappeared for JPGs too.
- JPG as Archive.jpg (167.81 KiB) Viewed 113 times
Best regards,
Kei