We're using Dopus in a 3D animation company, so we have a situation where we have scripts that will set our environment for a particular piece of work and launch an application. We end up with many of these files, but they almost all relate to imagery.
So with that in mind is it possible to assign a thumbnail image to any file? This would be very useful to us.
Not directly, at the moment.
It can be done via either a shell extension or Opus plugin, but both require some C++ code (or similar). We can help there, but don’t currently have time to write the whole thing.
Changing icons (not thumbnails) is also possible via labels, but the way those work wouldn’t be a good fit here.
In Opus 13, there is also the option of storing each file in a folder, with the desired thumbnail in the folder as well, and thumbnail styles configured to look for the image. The folder could then be displayed using the thumbnail (but the file itself would look the same).
@Leo
Now there's even a real use case for the single-file thumbnail idea, who would have thought! o)
It could make sense, if there are really no other files which could be put together into a folder.
1 Like
Having a thumbnail stored in each folder sounds perfect for our render output. If the thumbnail will just point to a file then we can also roll this into our rendering process to automatically generate the thumbnail when a render completes.
I have dabbled in C++ so I can start looking into that and see if it's worth the investment.
In that case, Opus 13's "thumbnail styles" might be all you need. You can specify that folder thumbnails look for a named file inside the folder and then (optionally) combine that file with another image to produce the folder thumbnail. Example.
In Opus 12, you could also name the thumbnail folder.jpg to do something similar, but with the image inside a standard folder frame/background, rather than a custom (or removed) frame/background. That also works with the Windows shell, so you'd see the thumbnails in File Open dialogs, although the way the shell renders them leaves something to be desired. (Depending on Opus configuration, Opus can render those folder thumbs via the shell, or by itself. You'd probably want the latter to avoid the image being distorted or partially covered.)
Just to reiterate, the files themselves would not have special thumbnails; only the folders they are in.
Changing the thumbnails for the files themselves would require writing some plugin code. But, thinking on it some more, it could be fairly simple code if the aim is just to e.g. use filename_thumb.png as the thumbnail for filename.xyz. (And you could hide the *_thumb.png files so they don't clutter things up. Or keep them in a separate directory somewhere.) A plugin to do that would be quite simple, and we can definitely help there if needed.