Altap Salamander Support Forums

This is simple plugin displaying Explorer Thumbnails in Salamander.
- It has no configuration and no UI.
- It works only on Windows 2000, Windows XP and newer

Please discuss plugin in this thread. Comments, suggestions and future request are welcome

Known Issues:
- Alpha channel on Windows XP doesn't work properly at all times.
- Windows Vista (and newer) has only one stage thumbnail loading. First time (until cached) load time may be higher.
- Doesn't support Windows Me even when thumbnails are supported on Windows Me.

Version History:
Version 0.24.29: (2010-01-22)
- Compatible with Altap Salamander 2.52
- Removed all external dependencies

Version 0.23.25: (2009-04-30)
- Compatible with Altap Salamander 2.5 and later (with the exception of 2.52 beta 1)
- recompiled with the new fixed SDK
- small tweaks
Version 0.22.22: (2009-04-16)
- Compatible with Altap Salamander 2.5 and later (with the exception of 2.52 beta 1)
- Altap Salamander 2.52: Added plugin icon
Version 0.21b1: (2009-03-23)
- Removed MSVCR80.dll dependency. Uses salrtl.dll bundled with Altap Salamander
Version 0.2b1: (2009-01-30)
- compiled for Altap Salamander 2.52 beta 1
Version 0.2: (2009-01-19)
- Windows 2000:
-- 2 stage thumbnail loading
- Windows XP:
-- 2 stage thumbnail loading
-- alpha channel support
-- non-squared images have proper transparent background
- Windows Vista (and newer):
-- Vista IShellItemImageFactory support:
--- alpha Channel support
--- global cache support
--- large Vista icon support (until properly supported by Salamander)

Version 0.1: (2009-01-13)
- first version; displays Explorer Thumbnails using IExtractImage

Nice, thanks for making this plugin!

I have tested it and it seems that it displays other thumbnails than Eplorer under Vista. They are 160x160 pixels instead of Explorer's 256x256. Explorer has two stages: first version of thumbnails seems to be extracted from EXIF and after displaying all visible thumbnails in this version, Explorer probably extracts whole image and makes better own thumbnails with size of 256x256 pixels.

As I mentioned in the other thread, this is great!!!

Thank you again!

Personally I hate the explorer thumbs because they spread files all over the disk. I prefer your option to create thumbs on-the-fly (although I can see this could be annoying on slow PCs). Maybe you could add a config option to choose between on-the-fly thumbnails or read from thumbs.db...

plino wrote:Personally I hate the explorer thumbs because they spread files all over the disk.

Just for info, this is changed since Vista - there is a centralized storage for thumbnails and previews in \Users\[User Account Name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

MartinS, thank you for the tip. Well done, Microsoft!

Personally I hate Vista. I hope they keep that feature on Windows 7, which is much lighter (at least build 7000 is...)

EDIT: I have checked. Windows 7 creates a db file for each size. There is even a thumbcache1024.db... I can image these files can grow hugely for large collections of photos...

I think I will disable thumbnails in Explorer and stick with on-the-fly thumbnails in Salamander!!!

Zarevak, please add a "rotate on exif info" option for the next version (if ever).

Thanks!

SelfMan wrote:Zarevak, please add a "rotate on exif info" option for the next version (if ever).

Which Windows are you using? Is Explorer displaying the image correctly? I'm not planning on adding anything else then using the same interfaces Explorer is using.

zarevak wrote:

SelfMan wrote:Zarevak, please add a "rotate on exif info" option for the next version (if ever).

Which Windows are you using? Is Explorer displaying the image correctly? I'm not planning on adding anything else then using the same interfaces Explorer is using.

WinXP Pro SP3
Thumbs are ok. Just some of the images were shot with the on height (portait) so they display as lying/landscape.

SelfMan wrote:WinXP Pro SP3
Thumbs are ok. Just some of the images were shot with the on height (portait) so they display as lying/landscape.

I'm using Windows XP Pro SP3, but I'm not able to reproduce EXIF based rotation in Explorer.
(EXIF value in the file as read by PictView: Orientation: right - top)
BTW: I'm not sure, what are the black lines on the PictView thumbnail... When I increase the size of thumbnails in Salamander they disappear and the image is still rotated correctly.

If you have image, which is properly displayed in Explorer and not in Salamander when using Explorer Thumbnails, please send it to me - attach it to this thread or send it to my email salamander AT zarevak.net

zarevak wrote:BTW: I'm not sure, what are the black lines on the PictView thumbnail...

What you see now is the quickly extracted embedded EXIF thumbnail stored inside the JPG file.

zarevak wrote:When I increase the size of thumbnails in Salamander they disappear and the image is still rotated correctly.

The embedded thumbnail is too small now, therefore it is replaced by an on-the-fly generated thumbnail in the 2nd phase of thumbnail generation.

Zarevak, you missunderstood me. Its not a bug but a feature request (if possible). Explorer does not use the the exif information to rotate the image. I am just asking if it is possible that yout plug-in checks the info and rotates the image accordingly after the thumbnail is generated.

SelfMan wrote:Zarevak, you missunderstood me. Its not a bug but a feature request (if possible). Explorer does not use the the exif information to rotate the image. I am just asking if it is possible that yout plug-in checks the info and rotates the image accordingly after the thumbnail is generated.

if You have primary plugin for pictures PICTVIEW thumbnail is rotate by EXIF

Is there a some way to export the thumbnails?

Why export them? If you want to make thumbnails out of some image files, it's better to use a specialized program. Try NConvert by Pierre-emmanuel Gougelet.

konelupy wrote:

SelfMan wrote:Zarevak, you missunderstood me. Its not a bug but a feature request (if possible). Explorer does not use the the exif information to rotate the image. I am just asking if it is possible that yout plug-in checks the info and rotates the image accordingly after the thumbnail is generated.

if You have primary plugin for pictures PICTVIEW thumbnail is rotate by EXIF

The point is that I didn't buy pictview because I don't need it.
I stick with irfanview and other specialized tools.