Scriptable (Folder)PreviewPane

Features wanted...
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fishgod
Posts: 222
Joined: 03 Feb 2008 00:40
Location: Sankt Augustin (near Bonn), Germany

Scriptable (Folder)PreviewPane

Post by fishgod »

Currently the Preview is only of use for files (where it is great).
But think of the possibilies if the Preview could show something user-defined for folders (where currently it shows just nothing).

I think the most prominent example would be to show the first image from a folder (aka the folder-thumb).
Could be used i.e. to show album-covers in a list of music-folders.
Using Thumbs-View is not really a option for this example if your want to show additional columns.
Using Details with Thumbs is also not really an option if your list contains thousand of items, because either you don't see many items (because of large thumbs) or you don't really see the thumbs as they are tiny.
Seeing one thumb at a time for the selected item would be such a great functionality (like it is when working with a list of images)

I think this will mostly be interesting for the PreviewPane (maybe also for PreviewTab) and for Folders, but ultimatly this could have a scriptable interface where you can freely define what to show on preview based on the filetype.
Some more examples:
- Show MediaInfo in PreviewPane for multimedia-files (by running mediainfo-cli from script)
- Display somehow related file in PreviewPane (i.e. because you have paires of filenames with different extensions, but resolution of previewed file should be up to a script)
- Show the Content of the Folder (I am aware of HoverBox and FolderContentPreview on FolderIcon Mouse Up, but these are way to mousy for me. Having this with the PreviewPane would be way more keyboard-friendly)

What do you guys think?
And if full implementation of scripted preview will not make it into XY, showing the folder-thumb for folders could be hardcoded as a first step into making the PreviewPane of any use for folders.
Operating System: Win10 x64 / Win7 x64 / almost allways newest XY-beta
totally XYscripting-addicted

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