Image preview side pane

The default file picker (probably GTK file picker) contains an image preview sidebar. This is currently missing from thunar, and doesnt seem too complicated to implement as tumblerd already generates large thumbnails which are more than suitable for the task.

Simplified principle of action:

• Toggle option to enable disable preview side pane.
• When an image is selected the tumbler generated large thumbnail gets displayed in the preview pane.
• If a thumbnail does not exist it is generated by tumblerd and then displayed
• If tumblerd cannot generate a thumbnail or the file is not of a type that can display a preview a placeholder image (probably a ? is displayed)

I'd be happy to try and work on this myself, but I am not familiar enough with the codebase, so any tips on where to start with this are appreciated!

Actually I dont like the way it was done by the gtk file picker dialog :) Alot of space on the right side is wasted, the UI is juming around, dependent to the file-type. Nothing I would want to see in thunar.

doesnt seem too complicated to implement

You must be kidding :P Something like that for sure would be a good bunch of work.

If you want a large thumbnail preview, I would suggest e.g. to display the thumbnail either directly near the cursor, possibly via a tooltip, or maybe on the top/bottom right corner inside the view(depending on the location of the selection).

If a tooltip allows to have a thumbnail, that probably would be the most simple solution. First step would be a minimalistic gtk programm to see how a large thumbnail in a tooltip would look like.

Inside thunar thunar_window_redirect_menu_tooltips_to_statusbar_recursive would be a good starting point.

added 2. Feature 5. Thumbnails labels

In my opinion, image preview is very important. If you doing some design stuff, like website and you have a bunch of images to choose from,a preview would be very nice. Opening each image in Ristretto or browsing images in Ristretto is a pain!

Showing the preview in a tooltip would not this much helpful as a preview pane!

This is how dolphin does this:

preview image:

The approach of Apples Finder is interesting too, but way more work to implement.

IMO the 'preview folder' is not very useful. And for sure different story, should not be discussed in this issue.

Preview pictures on the right: a MR would be welcome !

Preview of text files/other documents: That would open pandoras box wrt to executing all types of file-formats .. all that for a very limited gain. (Besides that, it should not be discussed in this issue. This issue is about images)

My focus is on images too. But what should the preview show if you select a non image file ... closing the preview is bad, cause the ui jumps around.

IMO should be fine to show something like an empty frame in that case. Or something like "no image selected" text.

Taking a hint from Windows

What is windows? :P

This preview side pane shouldn't be limited to just images and should be for any file type that thumbnails are produced by the system, which includes audio and video files as well, and any future formats like pdf, which are stored in ~/.cache/thumbnails/.

As I already told above, this issue is about image preview, please stay on that topic. One issue per feature.

Already image preview will be alot of work to implement. If we have that one day, we can discuss about other formats. It makes no sense to discuss that now & here.

I played a little bit with the sources and it seems that showing the large thumbnail somewhere, is quite easy, but Im not sure, where to show it. i think it would be nice to show it in the bottom of the sidepane (tree or places), because there it would not waste too much space. but that means toggle the image preview, also toggles the sidepane ...

and this would not be a real image preview due to the fact that even the large thumbnail is very small. but it would be still helpful if using list or detail view. i would like to implement that as "image preview light" till we have a "real" image preview maybe someday ...

MR is coming, not someday but soonish :D

The bottom of the sidepane sounds like a excellent idea! Since the resolution of large thumbnails is anyhow very limited, I suppose we dont need more space to display the pic.

Looking forward to review a MR :)

• Some suggestions about the look? with or without borders?
• Need some buttons in the preview area? edit image? close preview? ...?
• I get only the normal thumbnails (#490 (closed))

Already very nice !

I think a border would look better. Bottom tree-view folder being cut in the middle of nowhere does not look good to me :)

I dont think we need a button to close it. Imo a toggle in the view menu should be sufficient. I would put it below the "menubar" toggle.

I suppose for the first it will be sufficient to just show the image .. we can add more functionality later on, if we feel it is missing !

assigned to @SKefalidis

mentioned in merge request !274 (merged)

mentioned in commit 70cddc4b

Fixed by above MR thanks to @SKefalidis !

To be released in thunar 4.17.10

closed

mentioned in commit e7506539