A new version of WHS Thumbnailer for Windows Home Server is now available.
What is it?
WHSThumbnailer is a Microsoft Windows Home Server Add-In to help you create thumbnail images of photographs stored on your Home Server. It’s great for anyone who has a lot of large, high resolution photos that they want to share with friends or family, or publish to a photo sharing website like flickr or facebook. It can also add a digital watermark to the generated thumbnails, making it useful for photographers who want to display their work online.
Features
- Home Server console front end to manage thumbnail generation
- Specify maximum thumbnail dimensions (height, width)
- Specify maximum thumbnail JPEG quality
- Specify thumbnail subfolder name
- Add single files, one at a time
- Add entire folders of files
- Create watched folders that automatically add new files as they are created
- Background service to process files
- Apply a watermark to any generated thumbnail images
- Specify watermark ‘Copyright text’
- Specify watermark image
- Specify watermark opacity
User guide
User interface
The main components of the user interface are the toolbar, seen here along the top of the application, and the work item grid, which fills the remainder of the application workspace.
The toolbar is used to access application functionality, while the work item grid displays the current status of the background service work item queue.
Features & functionality
Work items
The work items grid displays the queue of work items to be processed by the background service. Each work item represents a file to generate a thumbnail from. The background service processes each work item in turn, when a work item is processed, it is removed from the work items queue.
Right clicking on an individual item in the grid will display the option to remove the item from the queue.
When items are added to the work items queue, they are not automatically displayed in the work item grid. Press the refresh button on the toolbar to display them. The display at the top of the home server console is automatically updated with the current number of items in the work items queue.
Press the clear queue button to clear all the items in the watched items queue.
Watched folders
Use this feature to setup a watched folder. When a folder is watched, the background service will automatically add any new photos placed inside that folder, (including subfolders), to its work item queue.
Click the watched folders button to display the list of watched folders.
From here, you can view, open and remove folders that are currently watched by the WHSThumbnailer background service.
Click the add button to display the folder browser dialog, and select another folder to watch. Note that the background service will need to be restarted for any changes you make here to take effect.
Adding files manually
While watched folders are useful for automatic thumbnail generation, WHSThumbnailer also allows you to add individual files, or all files inside a single folder to the work item queue. Click the add file button on the toolbar to add an individual file to the work item queue. Click the add folder button to select a folder of files to add to the work items queue.
Files added to the work item queue may not be visible immediately in the work items grid. Press the refresh button to reload and display the current work item queue in the work item grid.
Controlling thumbnail generation
Click the start processing button to begin processing the work items queue.
Thumbnail generation can be paused while while you add files to the work items queue. Pausing thumbnail generation will allow you to review the work items queue. During thumbnail generation, you can click the pause processing button at any time to stop the thumbnail generation process. Thumbnail generation only takes place if the background service is started.
Settings
Clicking on the settings button opens the settings dialog.
General settings
Thumbnail generator settings can be altered in this tab. Overall thumbnail dimensions can be changed by setting the maximum thumbnail width and height.
Thumbnail JPEG quality can be adjusted using the slider. Highest quality thumbnails are generated when the slider is at the furthest right.
The name of the subfolder in which thumbnails are generated can also be altered here.
These settings take effect immediately for new files added to the work items queue, upon confirmation of the settings dialog. Existing files in the work items queue are not affected!
Watermark settings
In this tab you can control the watermarking functionality of WHSThumbnailer. Check the apply watermark checkbox to apply watermarks to your thumbnails. You must provide a ‘Copyright message’ (watermark text) and a watermark image.
Watermark images can be either JPEG or png format. Transparency is preserved in these images. Magenta can be used to provide a transparent matte.
The overall transparency of the watermark can be adjusted using the opacity slider on this tab, from fully opaque, to barely visible at all.
Service settings
From here, you can start or stop the background service. Note that while the background service is stopped, thumbnail generation cannot take place. Stopping the background service will cause any unprocessed items in the work items queue to be lost.
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