Bug 89964 - Requesting a native 'Preview Handler' for Windows explorer shell
Summary: Requesting a native 'Preview Handler' for Windows explorer shell
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.3.0 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 88329 136528 147308 154150 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Desktop-Integration
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2015-03-12 10:50 UTC by blausand
Modified: 2024-02-22 15:53 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Preview of documents (90.20 KB, image/png)
2023-03-13 15:28 UTC, Michael FA
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description blausand 2015-03-12 10:50:22 UTC
Affects: indows 7  (64bit)
There should be a preview handler for the windows explorer.
As of my experience, libreOffice doesn't come with one at least until 4.2.1.
Doing some research, there's no third party or extra installable extension.
According to this thread in the libreOffice forum, there's none existing yet:
http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/386
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2015-03-13 03:31:22 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 2 JS 2019-11-03 13:03:43 UTC
The bug is not about file thumbnails. But about previews in the preview pane of Windows explorer. These previews that you can navigate through.

See also https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=107602#c17 where this issue has also been discussed. There is also a hint about where the problem comes from. (As a non programmer I can't tell if it's easy to solve.)

The internet is full of users complaining about this. I think solving this would be a great help for a huge amount of users!
Comment 3 V Stuart Foote 2019-11-03 17:56:39 UTC
Yes, I marked it invalid in error. More likely it ends up a WONTFIX. But with needed refactoring for bug 127433 to support Windows Dark mode, may be of dev interest to implement.

Windows shell integration is provided in core/win32/shlxthdl where ooofilt provides the current ability to search within ODF documents. 

While one page 'preview' thumbnails are provided by a dedicated shlxthdl/thumbviewer that extracts a document preview if recorded into the ODF archive and makes it available to the Windows shell (needs refactoring for bug 127433).

Though LibreOffice provides a search/find capability, there is no LibreOffice provided preview of ODF in the Windows Explorer 'Preview Pane' as implemented at Windows Vista for visual browsing of documents in Windows Explorer. [1]

Preview Handlers get recorded to Windows registry in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers and linked by file extension.

When installed, Microsoft Office (365, 2016) provides a Preview Handler implementation for browsing OOXML formatted documents and for some ODF formats--but these are not LibreOffice's ODF renderings.

(In reply to JS from comment #2)

> See also https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=107602#c17 where this
> issue has also been discussed. There is also a hint about where the problem
> comes from. (As a non programmer I can't tell if it's easy to solve.)
> 

No, at that point in the BZ issue that discussion was only about the Microsoft Office provided 'Preview Handler' not previewing AOO documents. Seems no longer an issue with Office 365 or Office 2016 installed.

> The internet is full of users complaining about this. I think solving this
> would be a great help for a huge amount of users!

Please provide links for threads/blogs expressing rational use case, always helpful to document requirements.


=-ref-=
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/preview-handlers
Comment 4 Mike Kaganski 2019-11-03 18:40:22 UTC
This is a valid request.

Note that to enable the preview, ~full LibreOffice would need to be loaded inside the Explorer, because there's no light-weight file viewer in LO (and basically all components take part in import/layout/display of the document). I have no idea how comfortable might that delay be (or what are the implications of crashing inside the preview). I can only be sure that tdf#69043 will get worse, because more processes in more scenarios would use LO files.

The ActiveX control (that embeds LO documents to ActiveX clients) has a functionality that possibly could be re-used here.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2019-11-04 09:32:35 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #4)
> This is a valid request.

Okay, let's keep the request open until dev found a solution.
Comment 6 V Stuart Foote 2020-01-11 20:10:50 UTC
*** Bug 88329 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Timur 2020-09-07 09:07:38 UTC
*** Bug 136528 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 8 Metis IT 2021-06-30 13:50:12 UTC Comment hidden (me-too)
Comment 9 Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) 2022-09-26 07:06:39 UTC
*** Bug 147308 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Mike Kaganski 2023-03-12 16:54:44 UTC
*** Bug 154150 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Michael FA 2023-03-13 15:28:04 UTC Comment hidden (noise)
Comment 12 Freddy Singh 2024-02-22 15:49:26 UTC
I encountered a situation where, after installing the LibreOffice 24.2.0.3 application on Microsoft Windows 10.0.19045.4046, I do not see thumbnails of the first pages of XML documents in xlsx, docx and pptx formats in Microsoft File Explorer. Thumbnails of other formats are displayed correctly. I don't have Microsoft Office installed.

Do I understand correctly that this particular problem is being discussed in this thread, and here you can subscribe to news about the progress of its solution?
Comment 13 Mike Kaganski 2024-02-22 15:53:28 UTC
(In reply to Freddy Singh from comment #12)

No - this is not about the images of the first pages (it is about scrollable preview in a dedicated Explore panel); and this is not about xlsx, docx and pptx formats (it is about LibreOffice own ODF files; creating preview for external file formats is out of scope here - it could be a possible follow-up, but only after implementation for own files).