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Disable preview for files which aren't considered as human-readable

Posted: 06 Jul 2019 09:09
by John_C
Is it possible to disable preview for exe and other files which aren't considered as human-readable?

Here is a test:

1. Enable preview pane (PP for short) (Ctrl-F11)
2. Select any exe file. You will see that it is shown in the PP as a hex dump. Bad. (Even if you are able to understand and manipulate the hex dump, it is nearly impossible without appropriate text editor.)
3. Select action.dat in Data directory. It's not exe, but it is not human-readable. You will see that it is shown in the PP in its raw form. Bad.
4. Select tag.dat in Data directory. It is human-readable and it will be shown in PP. GOOD.

So, in other words, the program should check whether the file is human-readable or not, and enable/disable preview accordingly to it.

Files:
datadir.png
Previews in the preview pane. They are taken from another file manager, to show the expected behavior (expected to my opinion):
previews.png

Re: Disable preview for files which aren't considered as human-readable

Posted: 06 Jul 2019 10:10
by highend
Only because they aren't considered (by whom???) as human-readable doesn't automatically imply that they shouldn't
be displayed.

Why? Maybe you're a programmer. Maybe you want to see (by looking at the magic number) if the .exe is
a dos or win application.

.dat files can be binary or text. That depends on the application that created them.
Etc., pp.

If you don't want something to be previewed why do you click on it _while the preview pane is open_?
It's a simple shortcut to hide it if it's "necessary"...

Re: Disable preview for files which aren't considered as human-readable

Posted: 06 Jul 2019 10:45
by John_C
@highend I don't mean completely disabling, restricting. I talk about an *option* to limit it - to better satisfy the expectations of the ~95-99%% users who don't work with hex dumps and don't need to preview the files which looks like action.dat. Just a check box or something similar.

Re: Disable preview for files which aren't considered as human-readable

Posted: 07 Jul 2019 15:30
by admin
Makes sense to me. I'll add a tweak.