Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

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evren
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Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von evren »

The golden thing about PLD is, it already contains a JPG header.
Because of that, even it doesn't need to be directly supported. Just need to register it as "previewed" content.
The fast picture viewer is too big and deep integrating for me. I hate to bloat my OS. I checked a complete solution for PLD, psd, eps, ps, ai etc. Here comes a lite and fast solution for 224 extensions.

Anyone wants to go directly to result can click and continue...
http://code.google.com/p/sagethumbs/

Others love to read welcomes to continue. If you will pay attention to details, you'll have no trouble.

* SageThumbs do not support PLD natively. But it doesn't need also. It has 2 smart features you need to set, to support PLD. And you must to make a few settings to not to have trouble with transparent file previews.

For those who doesn't want to be busy with settings, can directly jump to download link. There I gave a simple reg file which will solve all those settings. Actually I made a lite loader for myself to install in minimum. But I can not share regarding to license conditions. This reg file is a part of that. If you will use reg, you dont need to get busy on settings. Just jump to last sentence of this topic.
If you want to go manual...

Suggested settings for manuel aproach.

1 - Open the control panel of SageThumb
2 - Un-Click the "enable context menu..." and "show preview in sub..."
Reason: Why to bloat system? Make it lite and fast. And just a note, that context menu is just giving tools for newbies.
3 - Click "enable thumbnails in expl..."
4- Un-Click "use thumbnails as icons in exp"
Reason: It's just a performance killer. In cases you dont need thumbnails, you can just browse your folders in details / tile mode etc. But when you click this, under any case explorer will force to render all your photos.
5 - Un-Click "use type overlay on thumb...."
Reason: Just another pretty sounding feature will slowdown render of folders. If you dont care about performance, why not? But just as a note, in my test didn't worked stable on me. Maybe because of 64bit.
6 - Click "enable windows thumbnail cac.."
Reason: For performance also. Make it faster at least in your second visits :)
7 - Here comes the obligated need for PLD support. Click "Prefer image file embedded thumb..."
If you dont click on it, it can not show PLD files. Because of PLD files have JPG (as far as I see) header, this feature includes them in game.

Other fields explains itself. Go trough your decisions. But just note that;
If you want exact size thumbs like explorer shows in large preview, Make "w x h" area 250x250
And keep PNG compression below 5 for better performance.
I didn't tested the field "use windows image fax viewer" I dont know how the hell it works???

Now, in the field of "Custom file types" write pld and wait. Dont click OK before read the rest.

I suggest to un-register JPG / JPEG / PNG / TIF / TIFF / GIF / ICO / BMP / CUR / ICL / PDF / SCR / WMZ files. Why?

For images, let windows natively handle those. As it does before SageThumb. And SageT does not support transparency in thumbnails. Thats why transparent images can cause you trouble. Just unregister to be comfortable.

And the ico / cur / icl files what system use in interface. Expecially must to unregister. Want to see why? Just register and restart the system :) Don't worry, you can turn back.

Thats all friends. Now click OK and restart.
For those who hate to restart, give command to refresh thumbnail cache, after close all instances of explorer.exe from task manager and run it again inside task manager. Or just restart, dont make it hard ;)

That much of explanation musn't scare you. It's working like a charm. But like all other "non-dummy" solutions, needs a few settings. Solutions for dummies can be straight-forward in setup but can never be as fast as those.

Here comes the click and go settings for all those I wrote.
SageT.zip
To solve with reg file
1. download software from link on above
2. Install
3. Click on reg file and click YES to merge
4. Open control panel of SageThumb from start menu and directly click OK on it...

That's it. And not forget to write a few lines to say "thank you" to developer. Since he solved a huge problem for free, I think he deserves it.
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Zuletzt geändert von evren am Di 17 Dez 2013 00:45, insgesamt 2-mal geändert.
evren
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von evren »

Anyone confused or want to ask welcomes. I tested enough to see possible issues
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Hoogo
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von Hoogo »

Seems to work for most .plds, but for some not, see example. If I remember correctly, PL can store thumbnails as .jpg or as .png in a file, depending on which one is smaller. Jpegsnoop doesn't find a jpg in the attached file. I'll check if keeping .png registered for Sage helps, otherwise either Sage or Photoline could need a new option ;)
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Herr Doktor, ich bin mir ganz sicher, ich habe Atom! /Doctor, doctor, I'm sure, I've got atoms!
SJ9000
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von SJ9000 »

Evren,

What is your purpose for creating 4 threads for the same topic?

It's very distracting.
evren
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von evren »

Hoogo hat geschrieben:PL can store thumbnails as .jpg or as .png in a file, depending on which one is smaller.
Ops, after you warn and sent a sample I checked my test files. Also found one not displaying. I was thinking that the preview header is fixed in JPG. So now we have a problem. Any software to search file patterns will look for JPG under any case. But sure some will exclude other formats regarding to performance issues. Performance because, it must to check file headers and determine the type.

Solution?
* Keep looking...
* Wait for PhotoLine to offer this in native.
* Or, since PLD is not a well known and popular format, I believe it will be better to fix header format in JPG. Need to ask it to Mr. Gerhard.
SJ9000 hat geschrieben:What is your purpose for creating 4 threads for the same topic?
Hi;
I opened just one topic. The others are topics opened before and discussed on this need. I just replied others.
Please read other topics. You'll just find a "short note" to inform users who are following those topics.
So, I'm just trying to help and share the solution that I found. To let all benefit, not to distract.
bkh
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von bkh »

evren hat geschrieben:
Hoogo hat geschrieben:PL can store thumbnails as .jpg or as .png in a file, depending on which one is smaller.
Ops, after you warn and sent a sample I checked my test files. Also found one not displaying. I was thinking that the preview header is fixed in JPG.
No, PL previews can also be pngs (looking for PNG along with JPEG headers isn't really any harder). I don't know when PL choses PNG instead of JPEG, though.
evren hat geschrieben:* Wait for PhotoLine to offer this in native.
I guess you must have seen this explanation why PL doesn't offer previews on Windows? On OS X, PL supports preview icons. So I'm afraid Windows users will have to wait for Microsoft to change its policy.

Cheers

Burkhard.
evren
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von evren »

bkh hat geschrieben:No, PL previews can also be pngs (looking for PNG along with JPEG headers isn't really any harder). I don't know when PL choses PNG instead of JPEG, though.
Actually the biggest leap in performance starts with reading headers instead of just to check extensions an go trough. And yes, PNG also can be checked. But just as a note, still there are designers around sending works for print in JPEG ! format. So, maybe early to expect too much of sense from extension developers. Personally I never be good with JPEG, but it still rules thumbnails, web galleries, headers, previews etc.
I believe that the best option is to fix PLD files headers in JPG.
Not PhotoLine nor any other softwares can't change the World's hangups
bkh hat geschrieben:I guess you must have seen this explanation why PL doesn't offer previews on Windows?
Actually not a big deal. Doesn't had to be included in installation. Can be distributed as a seperate and people can just click on accept when windows warns. I hate this aproach of windows like it solved all of it's problems and drivers left :)

But as I wrote above, my opinion is to ask developers and fix headers.
The PL is quite in the edge of being a legend in design suits. And as I see, they try to manage new features without bloating or growing the size of software. I'ts not an easy deal. So why to make them busy with an extension also?
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photoken
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Re: Showing PLD thumbnails in explorer (fast and free)

Beitrag von photoken »

bkh hat geschrieben:
evren hat geschrieben:* Wait for PhotoLine to offer this in native.
I guess you must have seen this explanation why PL doesn't offer previews on Windows? On OS X, PL supports preview icons. So I'm afraid Windows users will have to wait for Microsoft to change its policy.
Just to reinforce what was said in the other thread, the FastPictureViewer CodecPac displays the thumbnail for the "SpriteBloecke.pld" (supplied by Hoogo) in Win7x64's Windows Explorer.
Ken
Yes, I think it can be eeeeeasily done....
Just take everything out on Highway 61.