LDView 4.2 Beta 1 Released

[Travis Cobbs]

1. He first needs to let the thumbnail generator run on some folder,
creating images he does not want (as he wants to change the default configuration).

I'll update the installer to create the Thumbnails preference set when the corresponding check box is checked in the installer to use LDView to generate thumbnails.

2. Then he needs to fire up LDView and change the preference set. While doing that, he needs to be aware which one to pick: is he using a 32bit Windows explorer, then he needs to run LDView.exe, is he using a 64bit Windows explorer, then he needs to run LDView64.exe

Once I fix the thumbnailer, there should only be one LDView installed. Having said that, both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of LDView store their preferences in the same place in the registry, so it really doesn't matter which is run.

3. Inside the application, he needs to change the "Thumbnails" preference set.

This will be necessary no matter what.

4. Then he can go back to the folder where he wants to see the thumbnail renderings. He there needs to touch all files which from step 1. got an ugly image. This will trigger its thumbnail re-generation.

Fixing the installer fixes this. However, starting with Windows Vista, MS made it totally ridiculous to force regeneration of thumbnails, and there's not really anything I can do about that.

(B) Add a checkbox to it whether LDView shall render thumbnails in Windows explorer or not.
Currently, this can only be toggled at install time. I suggest copying the necessary DLLs always,
and letting this checkbox turn their usage on and off (i.e., setting/unsetting the necessary registry key(s)).

I'll have to think about that. I can acknowledge the utility, but it's not possible to modify system registry keys (which the Thumbnailer uses) from an app when UAC is enabled. Working around this is a big enough undertaking that I may not ever do so, and not doing it just confuses novice users. Plus, I feel that UAC should be enabled, and that doing anything to discourage this is bad.

© Share the preference sets, especially "Thumbnails" between the 64bit and 32bit instances LDView.exe and LDView64.exe.
TODO: I don't know if this is already the case. I suspect that my Win32-Explorer spawns a Win32-LDView.exe, and that one sees its own copy, whereas I when using the tool interactively, fire up LDView64.exe. These two should share their preference sets.

All LDView settings have always been shared between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the app.

(D) Change the default settings of the "Thumbnails" preference set.
It currently creates a black background, which looks terrible and frightening in the otherwise "bright" Windows 7 explorer.
I have to always change that manually to "white".
Second: the default field of view setting is terrible, the thumbnails all have a fisheye effect.
My suggestions for (IMHO) better defaults of the "Thumbnails" preference set are:
- background color RGB 245/245/245
- default color RGB 225/225/225
- field of view = 10

I'll make sure that the default one that I install is more reasonable. The down side of this is that this may clobber any user settings, so I may only set the background color. (I'll have to read my installer docs to see if I can have it only set a registry value when that value isn't yet present.)