Display icons instead of thumbnails for certain file types in the thumbnail column

I usually browse my files in Details view with the thumbnail column active. The thumbnail provides a visual aid that helps me to quickly identify files. I also set the preference to hide icons when the thumbnail column is visible (seeing both thumbnails and icons side by side is unsightly).

This setup works well for me, but there are some file types which I would like to identify with an icon rather than a thumbnail, like PDF files (the tiny thumbnails of the PDFs don't aid me visually in identifying the files). It would be great if we could exclude certain file types from generating thumbnails in the thumbnail column, reverting to their system icon instead.

Would this be possible to achieve through scripting? If so, I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

If it's not possible, I'm hoping this feature could be added in a future update.

Thanks

For PDF files, if you don't want the thumbnails in any situations, you could disable the PDF thumbnail provider (usually part of your PDF viewer, e.g. Adobe Reader) using ShellExView.

Thanks for the suggestion Leo. Unfortunately, disabling the PDF thumbnail handler disables PDF thumbnail generation completely, even in Thumbnail view. I would still like to see thumbnails for PDF files in Thumbnail view, just not in the Thumbnail column.

The same goes for text files; if I disable the Text thumbnail plugin in DOpus, I get the desired result in the Thumbnail column (i.e. show the system icon for text files), but at the same time, I lose text thumbnails in Thumbnail view as well as in the Info Tip (which I wouldn't want).

Fair enough, that makes sense.

I'm not sure how difficult it would be off the top of my head, but I've added it to our ideas list to consider when we have time to investigate in detail.

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Thanks for considering it :slight_smile:

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I think this is a great idea - I gave up trying to use the icons in the detail view column because of this. Opusfriend, thanks for the submission and Leo, thanks for the consideration.

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