Windows preview handler

Hello, is it possible to display KiCad & FreeCad file formats as graphics in Windows Explorer?

No.

Can someone create a windows preview handler?

If someone wants to contribute one, they can go ahead?

KiCad doesn’t currently run headless well to be able to generate images like that so it will require a decent size of work.

Objectively; what is the value of this?

Once in an earlier version of Windows, when I hovered over an icon in the taskbar, I would see the full filename even if it is a long filename. But now…for the last (some years) I get a thumbnail which is too small to read, along with a truncated filename which prevents me from seeing which file I will view when the filename difference is in the last few characters. I find full filenames much more useful than thumbnail and similar graphics. To me those graphics are mostly an obfuscation.

The only practical way for this to work would be to create a thumbnail graphic for Windows to display. I am not convinced this would be very helpful, especially for schematics shrunk to a tiny size

Do previews come with tooltips? (I don’t know, I don’t use Windows much.) I don’t see that a thumbnail could tell you much, as BobZ and davidsrsb said, unless your boards are very distinctive in shape, but a tooltip might be useful to show the size of the board, the date in the title block, the number of layers, etc. That sort of information could be extracted from the schematic or board files.

Eh? The Windows Preview Handler scales dynamically. It’s not just tiny thumbnails

Extra Large Thumbnails

Preview Pane Enabled

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Good morning, I would like to explain to you why I asked this question. The fact is that I only speak German and I have no idea about python. I use Google to translate, so I use the SpeedCommander to quickly display graphics or text. Pictures tell me more than text.

Furthermore, the symbols on have different names in English than in German and the footprints have different names. It could be easier if the footprints were just sorted by package shape. For example: All SMD in one folder, including all a folder with 0402 housing, in it the footprints of LED, R, C etc. Next example: THD housing, lying underneath in parallel. The number of pins, etc., would be my criteria for building a database.
But back to the real topic. KiCad already brings all viewers with it, whether they are symbols, footprints or 3D objects.

My question now is, why can’t you just remove all tools from the viewer and there would be a viewer.

Regards

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