Hi,
Neat control ! very usefull. thx for sharing this !
one question: is it possible to have Hitchicker display multiple filetypes ?
Hi ZBuffer,
sorry for the delay. It is not possible currently, sorry.
I have a question about setting the thumbSize.
I would like to give users three options for thumbnail size without enabling .ShowToolBar. I don’t want to give them the option to browse to just any folder, there is a treeView feeding HitchHiker directories.
So I created a buttons that set the thumbSize easy enough. but when the thumbs resize, the previous image size remains but cropped to the new thumbSize. i.e. if I drop from Large to Small the thumbs are smaller but the image inside is still the large thumbnail.
I assume this is because HitchHiker needs to be refreshed or repopulated. I’ve tried .refresh, .update…
calling populate again works but I’m wondering if there is an alternative method?
Hi Jonah, sorry I didn’t see these questions before – you will have to call populate as you have already found out. There are some preset thumbsize properties (thumbnails) but if you want a custom size you can use the thumbsize property, passing it a dotnet size to set. However resizing the button means that hitchhiker needs to recalculate the thumbnail as it uses the button dimensions multiplied by the image aspect ratio. It technically works out whether the image is portrait or landscape and uses the longest side, thus making the thumb preview as large as possible on the button surface but preserving the image aspect.
I have finally been able to update HitchHiker to version 4.3
There are a few big improvements in this release –
[I]Populate (from file array)
Ability to display max file type
Super fast thumbnail cache[/I]
There are some screen grabs explaining the new features.
please head over to the usual place, www.lonerobot.net to download. I’ve added a few new research posts too, recently, if you are interested in the other control development that I’ve been doing.
Ooooo. Big changes. Can’t wait to try it out!
No problem on the response. I went with simply repopulating. No user has complained, even with a few hundred thumbs in a folder.
Will the cache feature work in this case as well? I’m away from a real Internet connection or I would download and test for myself.
Hi Jonah,
Cache mode is fast
You have the initial first populate call, but instead of discarding the thumbnails, it is storing them on the user’s local drive. The next time you run in the same folder, wammo they are there almost immediately – hundreds of hi-res previews.
I have written a matte shadow utility at work that uses the latest version of HitchHiker to point at a directory of hundreds of 1280×720 background images. Im cache mode it loads immediately! If it encounters a new image while in cache mode, it adds this to the buffer. If you ever need to rebuild the cached images (ie you change the thumbsize) then hold shift and right click the hitchhiker main panel and pick the refresh icon – this forces the cache to rebuild.
You can see the speed difference on the screen vids on my site.
If you are using HH, do you mind sharing some info as to how you’ve done it or a screenshot? it really helps me to see what people are using it for!