Seadrive - Thumbnails for cloud files

I have a fairly large library with lots of pictures and videos. The ones that are only on the server have no thumbnails, which makes it hard to find the particular files that I’m looking for.

I found an earlier thread on the same subject

You may notice that OneDrive has thumbnail preview for placeholder files. That’s because OneDrive is a native application in MSIX format. But converting SeaDrive to MSIX format requires huge architectural change so it’s not on our plan.

I believe that this is incorrect. The microsoft sample uses the MSIX package to register the shell extension handlers, but it doesn’t seem like it absolutely has to be done that way. I think they could also be registered with regsvr32 or the win32 API. Or, the shell extensions themselves could be put in an MSIX without having to change the rest of seadrive to MSIX

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With cloud file API, thumbnails are provided by SeaDrive process itself, not by some extension. This is quite different from traditional extensions, which is a COM server running inside the Windows Explorer process. So using MSIX should be the only way to make thumbnails work with placeholder files. We researched but didn’t find any other entries in the registry for hacking this. Even such entries exists, it’s non standard and subject to change in the future. Sometimes MS technology sucks…

google “userfilesystem shellextensionregistrar”

These guys are using the same windows cloud files api you are. They have a way of registering shell extensions, including thumbnail handlers, that doesn’t involve MSIX. It can obviously be done

I like the sync speed and responsiveness that seafile has, but without thumbnail support for large photo and video libraries, it’s borderline useless

I agree on a certain point with you, in 2022, not having a thumbnail on a video in cloud software, you can’t see it anywhere else except with seafile…
but I am also grateful to the developers, who have created a fabulous file sharing software,
basically there are so many good things in this software, that I am ready to do without thumbnails for the videos

I searched the phrase you provided. But can’t find relevant information. Could you provide the exact link to the project that implemented this?

I get a box that says sorry, you can’t include links in your posts

doc userfilesystem com/html/T_ITHit_FileSystem_Windows_ShellExtension_ShellExtensionRegistrar.htm

Obviously you’re not going to just switch to some proprietary solution, but this proves that it is possible.

Thank you for the information. We’ll look further.