Support for EXR Previews

[Howitzer99]

Hi Devs,

It would be very helpful to have preview and quick preview support for .exr image format. This is an open-source format, so hopefully wouldn't be too hard to implement.

Thanks,
Howitzer99

[highend]

You need a 32-bit preview handler, e.g. via https://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/

[Howitzer99]

Ah ok, so I could just use an external picture viewer, and not rely on the ones internal to XYplorer?

[highend]

It's not an external image viewer, it provides codecs for XYplorer to be able to display such image formats

[Howitzer99]

I downloaded the free trial, and yes, it does a good job of making making preview thumbnails for .exr and the .hdr images, and allows for the shift-hover to work in XYplorer to pop-up a preview window. Nice!

Overall, I'm finding that it really slows down XYplorer when navigating. Mostly with .pdf files, it seems to want to scan the same folder every time I change to it, and suspends XYplorer for about a minute (about 100 pdfs in the folder). This is in the details view without thumbnails option. I've tested it about 5-6 times, and each time it's the same, at least a minute XYplorer becomes unresponsive with the windows rotating circle icon.

Maybe it's a limitation of the trial, but I can't find a way to disable the caching of pdf file to test, the utility only open a page to purchase the full pack.

[highend]

I don't see this behavior here (with the full version, never used the trial)...

Which pdf tools do you have installed, maybe some Adobe Acrobat stuff?

[admin]

FYI, there are no limitations in the trial.

[highend]

He's talking about fastpicture viewer's trial I guess...

[admin]

Ah. Well, I never saw that kind of slowdown here. But then I paid for fastpicture viewer. But it would be quite stupid of them to slow down the trial. That's not a way to create business.

[Howitzer99]

Yes, I'm using the FastPicture Codec trial. I can't disable to the pdf preview, so tough to debug, but I've never had this slowdown before installing. I just tried again, and when I go into the XYplorer tab with the pdf's, XYplorer becomes unresponsive for around a minute. I can't switch tabs or anything, it just locks up.

As I do a lot of graphics work, I really like the ability to be ability to preview my exr and hdr files, but not at the cost of having XYplorer hang. Are there any other codec that might work better than you know of? For the full version, can you select which files it is associated with for previewing? I would love to disable whatever pdf interpretation it is running. At this point, I have no idea why it would be hanging while my display is set Detail without thumbnails, so essentially, this codes should not be attempting to make a preview, correct? Or is there other behavior they have for icons in the XYplorer file lister?

[admin]

I'm not even aware that FastPicture Codec does PDF. PDF is not an image format. You should use the free PDF-XChange Viewer (https://www.tracker-software.com/produc ... nge-viewer) for PDF previews.

Check whether you have any columns in the list that might create heavy work.

[Howitzer99]

Thanks, the PDF-XChange does have a fast preview when using XYplorer's shift-hover preview window. Nice.

From looking at FastPictureViewer's website, they are support pdf's, but it looks like you can only change the associations during install. So I'll try uninstalling and seeing if removing any association with pdf will stop the conflict with XYplorer.

"Support for XMP-based PDF thumbnails is now a separate option which can be opted-out during setup (to avoid conflicts with Adobe Acrobat own PDF thumbnail provider if installed)."

[Howitzer99]

Ok, I removed the FastPicture codecs to not generate previews for PDFs, and that seemed to have solved the issue. I'm seeing that some pdf's in the directory actually have a preview in XYplorer when using the shift-hover feature, and some don't. So it's appearing the FastPicture was actually building previews under the hood, so the preview that were generated looks to be from FastPicture and not PDFXchange.

I'm ok with not having pdf previews, the ability to add exr and hdr formats is ideal, thank again for the help, I'll pickup the full version now that it seems like the performance is back to normal with XYplorer.

[admin]

Thanks, the PDF-XChange does have a fast preview when using XYplorer's shift-hover preview window. Nice.

By "shift-hover preview" you mean the Hover Box, right? Note that this does not necessarily depend on SHIFT being held; the latter is only true if this is ticked: Configuration | Information | File Info Tips | Show info tips only while the shift key is held down

[Howitzer99]

Yes, correct, the Hover Box. This is the closest implementation I've seen to Apple's file preview system. Definitely handy!