About
ThumbView enables Thumbnails and Tooltips in MS-Windows Explorer for filetypes that are not natively supported. It started with PCX, TGA, and DDS, but now ThumbView supports an amazing 19 image types, directly in Explorer! ThumbView is a shell extension (COM object) called by Windows when it wants to display a thumbnail. See the features page for illustrations. Or go directly to the download area!
Supported filetypes
.cut, .dcx, .dds, .mdl, .mng, .pcd, .pcx, .pic, .pix, .png, .pnm/.pbm/.pgm/.ppm, .psd/.pdd, .psp, .pxr, .sgi/.rgb, .tga/.vda/.icb/.vst, .tif/.tiff, .wal, .xpm.
Supported plattforms
MS-Windows XP/2003/2000. If anyone tries any other MS-Windows platform please let me know how it went.
Donation
If you liked the program, you can donate any sum you think it's worth. There are some, simpler, thumbnail support extenders out there. And they go for about $8. I've seen some copies of ThumbView going for $19.99. I chose to make mine free. Any donations will go to buy programming books and courses, as well as motivate me to make more free and useful applications such as this.
News 
Click on the news header to read the whole article.
Once again, thank you for your support!
Features
Here are the currently implemented features of ThumbView.
Extendable thumbnail support
ThumbView (regular) uses a plug in system for extending the shell extension with other imagetypes.
Here displaying ThumbView enabling PCX and TGA support, together with the native BMP support and Photoshops own support for PSD. ThumbView uses "Thumbnail Extractors", plug-in support for thumbnail generation.
Tool Tips
Both hovering and in status bar. Shell extension for Windows XP Explorer.
Here displaying tool tips in both hover and selected mode.
Simple User Interface
Used for managing "Thumbnail Extractors".
Can it be any simpler to have total control over what Thumbnail Extractors are installed and active? :) This graphical version requires .NET Framework 1.1, but there is a console version for those that don't have .NET installed.
Auto install support for Thumbnail Extractors
By downloading and opening a Thumbnail Extractor, it will automagicly extract itself to the ThumbView Extractors folder and install itself. No hassle!
You get a simple confirmation on successful install.
Suggestions
Here's stuff I'd like to implement but for some reason haven't. E-mails and donations helps me motivate, so if you want any of this or something else.. you know what to do ;)
Details box in Web View
Extending the gray Information (Details?) box in Web View.
I want to have the same Tool Tip info in this gray details box, but I have no
idea on how. If you have any tips, please contact
me!
Extend Property Sheet
I want to display the same information as in Tool Tips for the Property Sheet
for all ThumbView supported image types. I have this MSDN
article to read when I have time over. [update]: this was more hassle than
I thought, unless there's a huge demand I'll leave this be, Info Tips already
gives the wanted information about the file.
Previews in Photo Gallery view
It seems that the program showing the previews isn't built into explorer, nor
is it a COM object, it's actually "Microsoft Picture and Fax viewer"
(I'll call it MPFV) running in a window. I have currently not found how to extend
MPFV with new file types. The only thing I've found is this MSDN
article explaining how to replace MPFV. That sounds like allot of work =P
but with enough donations I might do it ;)
Project
SourceForge.net Pages
This project is hosted on SourceForge.net, and they supply several useful project pages.
Main project page - This is the main page for the ThumbView project at SF.net
Donate - Help motivate me to implement the suggestions and show your appreciation for my hard work. The money is used to cover any development expenses, from eventual hosting to books and courses.
Forum - Post here if you have any questions or whatever.
Bug reports - If you have a bug to report, you can either post it here or e-mail me directly. Note! Make sure you tell me what ThumbView you're using (Lite or regular, together with version number) and exactly what the problem is ("it's not working" is too vague). If some images aren't displaying, send them to me or tell me where I can find them.
Feature requests - If you think you're missing a feature, post it here or e-mail me about it.
CVS - You can check out the latest code here, online.
Developers corner
Thumbnail Viewer .NET 1.1 - A sample application in C#.NET 1.1 that uses a Thumbnail Extractor to generate thumbnails. Check the source code to see how you can use ThumbView in your C# project! The file ExtractionConnector.cs is the p/invoke file you want in your project. Source and binary included.
Thumbnail Viewer .NET 2.0 - A C# .NET 2.0 version of the Thumbnail Viewer sample. It also support dynamic (late) binding to Thumbnail Extractors. Thanks to Sean Kent for this!
Thumbnail Viewer .NET 2.0 ActiveX - The C# .NET 2.0 version of the Thumbnail Viewer sample. It uses the ActiveX component ThumbCtl for the thumbnails, so this sample isn't dependent on any thumnail shell-extensions! If you have ThumbView though it will generate thumbnails for all ThumbView supported imagetypes.
Roadmap - Things to do for ThumbView 1.1 and 2.0. If you're a C++ programmer with experience with COM, feel free to take a look and contact me if you're interested in helping.
Source code - Get the source code for the latest release.
Thumbnail Extractor template - Use this if you wish to write a Thumbnail Extractor to plug into ThumbView. Just fill in the "Todo:"s and compile to a .dll. Then rename it to .tvx and run it.
Modules - A short description of the structure of ThumbView.
Postmortem - What went right, what went wrong and what I would do differently if I had to do this again.
MSDN: Windows 2000 UI Innovations - Enhance Your User's Experience with New Infotip and Icon Overlay Shell Extensions.
MSDN: More Windows 2000 UI Goodies - Extending Explorer Views by Customizing Hypertext Template Files. ThumbView is based on the IcoView project from the downloadable w2kui2.exe in this article.
New Graphical Interface: Enhance Your Programs with New Windows XP Shell Features - An article that goes through some shell extensions for Windows XP. Also has some information on usefull registry keys.
Credits
Developers
Thanks goes to the whole #gamedev channel on AfterNET, especially muer and Epidemi! Also thanks to bodisiw, Washu, Extrarius, psykr, SteelGolem, Sages, EDI, MaulingMonkey and Asztal. The ATL forum of Tek-Tips and the general programming forum of GameDev. My friend Robban (website) for helping out with this web page and creating the logo. And last but still greatest (and most drunk!) my good friend and soul-brother, DrunkenCoder (website).
Testers
These people have been the punching bags for bugs and other nastiness, hail
these brave soldiers:
Darko, Viktor Karpinnen, Robert Gergio, Dan Thibadeau, benryves, Lina, and Skelle.
Donors
Some people opened their wallets to help ThumbView grow, salutations to:
Aaron Lawrence and Philours, as well as several anonymous donors.
Other people providing test images to test if ThumbView works (or doesn't), hats off to:
DrunkenCoder, jure and Duncan Lock.
Download
Current version is 1.0. Please select one:
ThumbView - Targeted at programmers that want total control over the installed Thumbnail Extractors and make their own.
ThumbView Lite - Targeted at normal users that just want to have thumbnails and infotips for 19 image types, now!
They both work on Windows XP/2003/2000. If anyone tries any of the above on another MS-Windows platform please let me know how it went.
Download ThumbView Lite
Supports cut, dcx, dds, mdl, mng, pcd, pcx, pic, pix, png, pnm/pbm/pgm/ppm, psd/pdd, psp, pxr, sgi/rgb, tif/tiff, tga/vda/icb/vst, wal and xpm images.
Download by clicking here! (less than 0.5 megabyte!)
If you want to test the thumbnails directly, feel free to download these test images:
Click on the file size to download the package.| Image type | All images | Single image |
|---|---|---|
| BMP (reference image) | - | 122KB |
| DDS | 3 942KB | 19KB |
| PCX | 379KB | 127KB |
| PIC | - | 38KB |
| PNG | 2 300KB | 93KB |
| PNM/PBM/PGM/(PPM) | 621KB | 122KB |
| PSD/PDD | 410KB | 139KB |
| PSP | 425KB | 134KB |
| SGI/RAW | 391KB | 122KB |
| TGA/VDA/ICB/VST | 851KB | 45KB |
| TIF/TIFF | 1 384KB | 121KB |
| XPM | - | 34KB |
Download ThumbView
1) ThumbView application
First, download the installer and install ThumbView.
- installer [195kb]
2) Thumbnail Extractors
Now you just download the image type support you want. They're in my custom format .tvx, meaning that you don't have to save the file just open it and it'll install itself! If you want to see the difference between BeerPack and DevilPack you can see my Compatibility Chart page.
- PCX support [52kb]
- TGA support [52kb]
- DDS support [56kb]
- BeerPack (dds, pcx and tga support) [56kb] NEW! 2005-11-24
- DevilPack (cut, dcx, dds, mdl, mng, pcd, pcx, pic, pix, png, pnm/pbm/pgm/ppm, psd/pdd, psp, pxr, sgi/rgb, tga/vda/icb/vst, wal and xpm support) [612kb] NEW! 2005-11-24
3) Test images
Here are some test images if you want to test that ThumbView was installed correctly. These are the same images I use for my compatibility test, so not all will show correctly. Check the Compatibility Chart to see which ones should work. If you have any other variation of a image that is not represented there, feel free to contact me.
Click on the file size to download the package.| Image type | All images | Single image |
|---|---|---|
| BMP (reference image) | - | 122KB |
| DDS | 3 942KB | 19KB |
| PCX | 379KB | 127KB |
| PIC | - | 38KB |
| PNG | 2 300KB | 93KB |
| PNM/PBM/PGM/(PPM) | 621KB | 122KB |
| PSD/PDD | 410KB | 139KB |
| PSP | 425KB | 134KB |
| SGI/RAW | 391KB | 122KB |
| TGA/VDA/ICB/VST | 851KB | 45KB |
| TIF/TIFF | 1 384KB | 121KB |
| XPM | - | 34KB |
Contact
John-Philip "Seriema" Johansson
ThumbView coder.
seriema @ (NOSPAM-REMOVE) bredband . net
Torbjörn "DrunkenCoder" Gyllebring
Image extractors (Beermap) coder.
i . am @ (NOSPAM-REMOVE) drunkencoder . com
DevIL Homepage
ThumbView Lite and DevilPack for ThumbView uses DevIL for thumbnail extraction. If you have any problems with distorted images or so when using DevIL powered Thumbnail Extractors, this is where you should direct your complains ;)
Compatibility Chart
I have tested ThumbView with all possible format variations I could get hold of. I prefer to convert my test image for testing, so I know what the result will look like and what to expect from dimension and bpp. I was able to test that .mdl and .wal do "work", but I haven't been able to convert my test image to those so I can test the accuracy of the test.
I still need to convert my test image to these formats, and all their variations: dcx, mdl, mng, pcd, pix, pgm, pxr, wal. Also, if you have a non-listed variation of an image format listed here, let me know.
If you have any tips or if you can convert for me, please contact me!
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| CUT.cut | - | N |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| DDS_a1r5g5b5.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_a2b10g10r10.dds | color error | color error |
| DDS_a2r10g10b10.dds | color error | color error |
| DDS_a2w10v10u10.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_a4l4.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_a4r4g4b4.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_a8.dds | N | Y |
| DDS_a8b8g8r8.dds | color error | Y |
| DDS_a8l8.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_a8p8.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_a8r3g3b2.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_a8r8g8b8.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_a16b16g16r16.dds | N | N |
| DDS_a16b16g16r16f.dds | N | N |
| DDS_a32b32g32r32f.dds | N | N |
| DDS_cxv8u8.dds | N | N |
| DDS_d16_lockable.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_d32f_lockable.dds | N | N |
| DDS_dxt1.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_dxt2.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_dxt3.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_dxt4.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_dxt5.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_g8r8_g8b8.dds | N | N |
| DDS_g16r16.dds | distorted | color error |
| DDS_g16r16f.dds | Y | N |
| DDS_g32r32f.dds | N | N |
| DDS_l6v5u5.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_l8.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_l16.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_p8.dds | distorted | Y |
| DDS_q8w8v8u8.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_q16w16v16u16.dds | N | N |
| DDS_r3g3b2.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_r5g6b5.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_r8g8_b8g8.dds | N | N |
| DDS_r8g8b8.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_r16f.dds | N | N |
| DDS_r32f.dds | N | N |
| DDS_uyvy.dds | N | N |
| DDS_v8u8.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_v16u16.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_x1r5g5b5.dds | Y | Y |
| DDS_x4r4g4b4.dds | N | Y |
| DDS_x8b8g8r8.dds | distorted | Y |
| DDS_x8l8v8u8.dds | N | color error |
| DDS_yuy2.dds | N | N |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| LBM.lbm | - | N |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| PCX_gimp.pcx | Y | Y |
| PCX_ps.pcx | Y | Y |
| PCX_psp.pcx | Y | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| PIC.pic | - | N |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| PNG.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress0.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress1.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress2.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress3.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress4.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress5.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress6.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress7.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress8.png | - | Y |
| PNG_compress9.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed0.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed1.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed2.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed3.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed4.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed5.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed6.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed7.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed8.png | - | Y |
| PNG_interlaced_compressed9.png | - | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| PNM_ascii.pbm | - | inverted |
| PNM_binary.pbm | - | inverted |
| PNM_binary.pgm | - | Y |
| PNM_ascii.pnm | - | Y |
| PNM_raw.pnm | - | Y |
| PNM_ascii.ppm | - | Y |
| PNM_raw.ppm | - | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| PSD_gimp.psd | - | Y |
| PSD_ps.psd | - | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| PSP_LZ77.psp | - | N |
| PSP_RLE.psp | - | Y |
| PSP_Uncompressed.psp | - | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| SGI_aggresive_rle.rgb | - | Y |
| SGI_rle.rgb | - | Y |
| SGI_uncompressed.rgb | - | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| TGA_16_uncompressed.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_16_rle.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_24_uncompressed.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_24_rle.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_32_uncompressed.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_32_rle.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_flipped_rle.tga | Y | Y |
| TGA_flipped_uncompressed.tga | Y | Y |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| TIF.tif |
- | Y |
| TIF_deflated.tif | - | empty image |
| TIF_jpeg03.tif | - | crash |
| TIF_jpeg05.tif | - | crash |
| TIF_jpeg08.tif | - | empty image |
| TIF_jpeg10.tif | - | empty image |
| TIF_lzw.tif | - | crash |
| TIF_packed_bits.tif |
- | Y |
| TIF_pyramid.tif | - | Y |
| TIF_pyramid_jpeg03.tif |
- | crash |
| TIF_pyramid_jpeg05.tif |
- | crash |
| TIF_pyramid_jpeg08.tif |
- | empty image |
| TIF_pyramid_jpeg10.tif |
- | empty image |
| TIF_pyramid_lzw.tif |
- | crash |
| TIF_pyramid_zip.tif |
- | empty image |
| TIF_zip.tif | - | empty image |
| File | BeerMap | DevIL |
|---|---|---|
| XPM.xpm | - | noise |
