HTML Thumbnail Previews in Konqueror

Anonymous wrote in with the news that Malte has implemented thumbnail previews of HTML documents in Konqueror. Some screenshots: one and two. And, yes, folks, it looks to be configurable!

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Comments

Uhh what does xv have to do with this? Xv is for images this is web pages and will be a very important convenience tool for web developpers. That said I agree about DAV - it's wonderful. Go Live, Photoshop etc are all starting to support it.

But I think instead of having DAV "in Konqui" it should be "in KDE" so that every KDE based application inherits it as just another option in the File Open/Save dialogs ... That way Koffice etc would all become "DAV aware" (which MS claims future versions of MSOffice will be).

One thing I thought of re HTML previews was how it'd be great if (with links properly relavitized) you could edit a style sheet in a directory and then refresh and see all the thumbnails update!!

A decent style sheet editor would be a great thing -- apps like Go Live and Cold Fusion's editor provide a really easy to use UI for style sheet editing and adding elements (CF's lets you choose elements to include and edit in a style sheet grouped by what version of each browser supports from CSS).

by AC (not verified)

Heh replying to myself ...

On the stylesheet editor the idea was really to suggest that maybe it would be cool if Konqui's directory views themselves could be controlled by style sheets editable via a config panel that doubled as a CSS editor.

by Pointwood (not verified)

But I think instead of having DAV "in Konqui" it should be "in KDE" so that every KDE based application inherits it as just another option in the File Open/Save dialogs ... That way Koffice etc would all become "DAV aware" (which MS claims future versions of MSOffice will be).

Well that would be the natural way to implement it - as a new addition to KIO. All the I/O Konqy supports (ftp, smb, NFS, etc.) uses KIO. When a new "plugin" is added to KIO, it is available to all KDE2 applications instantly.
Take a look here under "KIO Network Transparency", where it is mentioned.

Quanta Plus (An excellent HTML/PHP/etc editor for KDE2) has a pretty decent stylesheet editor built in. I haven't looked at it enough to know whether it can sort by browser like you say, but this probably wouldn't be too difficult to add.
Someone has already responded about how KIOslaves work, so I won't repeat that (other than to say it's an amazingly awesome feature ;).

by Waldo Bastian (not verified)

DAV is certainly interesting and on the radar. We are just waiting for a volunteer :-) *hint*

Cheers,
Waldo

I think Dawit is already restructuring kio_http to make it extensible for example to support DAV. So if anyone's interested in helping, please mail [email protected] or drop Dawit a mail.

by Mark Veltzer (not verified)

I think it's time for a preview plugin architecture in Konqueror. This way any new plugin engine will not entail another menu item etc... and you could download plugins (imagine a C++ plugin...). I am not sure about how this should be handled at the kde level but I think that it should not be even at the konqueror level but rather at the mime level. Each mime type could have a preview plugin associated with it out of a library of plugins. You will be able to go in Konqueror, select which mimes which have plugins associated with them should be previewed (subset) and be done with it. Besides, doing it in the mime level will enable other applications to use plugins. (imagine a File/Open box which previews files also...).

In any case - very good work by the KDE team again.

Mark.

A plugin system like that is already prepared by the current implementation, but the 2.1 Beta 1 release is too close to do it before that.
Although it is not yet using plugins, any application can make use of the preview generator already as the preview generation is done by a KIO Slave (thumbnail:/) which makes it very flexible and easy to use. And yes, the selection of which generator to use (image / text / HTML currently) is done by MIME type.

by kidcat (not verified)

Just what I wanted to hear.... sweeeet talk in my ear./kidcat

by Adam Black (not verified)

This may be a bit off the start of the topic (my apoligies) but it sounds like someone reading here might be able to help me. When I try to preview a text file (i.e. a ChangeLog) Konqueror complains of a missing import filter and gives this error "Could not import file of type text/english" and thus will not open it. If I choose Kwrite or Kedit from the view menu it will open the file there but if I try to use it in Kword I recieve the same error. I compiled from source and have dug around in there looking for a solutiob but to no avail. Can someone please shed a light on this. Thanks in advance.
-Adam

I really like these "eye candies" like thumbnail and alphablending but I'm generally using the detailed view, so my eyes dont get any candies. I thing you should first concentrate on the functionality. What about:
1) right-click on the "back-button" and choose "new window"
2) drag an icon to the taskbar, holding over an application, application comes to the foreground, drop the icon on the application
3) more consistency with the drag-and-drop (ala os2)

Please dont think i don't like Kde! I belive in you. (sorry for my english)

by Haakon Nilsen (not verified)

Your point 2) is an inherently bad UI design, invented by MS. I agree that KDE should copy the *good* parts from Windows, but why the bad parts ;)

Maybe! But is there a faster way to get a file from konqueror to kwrite when konqueror is maximized? (dont want to pop up menus to copy/paste the file, dont want to un-maximize konqueror,...).

heroo

KDE 2.0 is probably the most impressive piece of open source soft, in years. However, I miss a few things from NT.

I think KDE should support customizable CTRL ALT shortcuts to launch applications. For example, CTRL ALT 'K' should have the same effect as pressing the Konqueror icon in the panel.

Also, the KDE Task Manager and the KDE System Guard should be merged in one. I don't see the need for two different programs.
Every time I press CTRL ESC, an additional System Guard appears. I understand this is not a bug, but I would like to have only one of them at a time.

by heroo (not verified)

I think, what you want is a program to define hotkeys (I want that, too (for xmms)). I hear that there will be a Khotkey-program in Kde2.1 as there was one in Kde1.xx, so dont worry. -heroo

by noselasd (not verified)

whats the problem? you can bind
the keys anyway you want...

by noselasd (not verified)

Why dont the konqueror folks do what they do in windows(IExplorer)?
(just because its windows doesnt mean it dont got any good ideas!!)

Where a pane on the left is simply a HTML,
allowing you to write simple HTML displaying some
info on the dir your in, or based on the
file type you currently selected..
So, clicking a image file, a HTML shows to the left,
containing some javascript, a plug-in able to
render thumbnails...
or selecting a video file, a diffrent html shows
to the left, with a plug-in(activex) beeing able
show the video in about 100,100 pixels..)
And, well since its HTML (actually DHTML) its
highly customizeable, where you can have
global views, per file-type or directory view..
and using your favourite image previewer,
html / text previewer or whatever your DHTML skills
can do...

just a thought... a brilliant idea i'd say..

by Masato (not verified)

While reading this I got an idea for large thumbails too:

If you click in gimp (in the pattern or brush selection) on an element which is larger gimp display it fully.

Something similar for the image/text/html thumbnails would be great.

If you click with the Middle Mouse Button on the thumbnail konquerer show it 4x4(/5x5/3x3 or whatever) larger.

by Glenn Alexander (not verified)

I really hate having extra files added to my data storage volume. Any chance of an option to force all previews to be stored in the html cache? I assume this will be done by default if the volume is locked ?? but I would like it to happen always.

BTW. Why does the Backspace forward delete. That is illogical. We have a Delete key for forward deletion. An option in the key bindings control to chose BS behavior would be very much better than the suggested hack. While we're at it, a checkbox for turning Numlock on by default would be nice. I know this is an X issue, but again, a checkbox is easier than fiddling with X config files.

by Roey Katz (not verified)

Hello,

First off I'd like to thank the KDE team for advancing an innovation far beyond that of Microsoft's. Microsoft did have a feature to save a Web page as graphics (say, jpg or png). Contrast this to KDE's HTML preview --

1) Konqeuror does not convert relative URLs to absolute URLs. This means that any picture or text which is included into the HTML and is encoded with a relative url file will not show up in the thumbnail.

suggestion: convert relative paths in the HTML file to absolute ones. It's is a simple fix.

2) Creating the thumbnails is slow. Why not create the thumbnail as you save the HTML from the start?
If I click 'Location->Save', a thumbnail should immediately be created

suggestion: save a thumbnail at the same time that one File->Save's a Web page. Again, a simple fix.

3) I cannot say that MS has this (but then again, I'm used to KDE innovating past MS): When selecting bookmarks, all we're looking at is text. If I am keeping links to non-English homepages, I may want instead to select the bookmark based on a thumbnail catalogue. In this case, I'd open the bookmark directory and look from there (doube-clicking would launch Konqueror with that URL). But we don't *have* bookmark directories, we have bookmark XML files.

suggestion: Perhaps a "thumbnail=" entry should be added to a entry to denote the location of the thumbnail. Have a mode to select bookmark where a thumbnail catalogue is shown. THIS in total would be useful.

Roey