f3d-app
Improve Windows Thumbnailer
Context F3D thumbnailer implementation on Windows rely on an old Windows standard which requires creating a F3D process every time, which is slow. There is a new standard for thumbnails on Windows that rely on sandboxing and would be much more efficient. We should use that standard.
Skills Needed
- Windows C++
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Multiple users remarked that the Windows thumbnailers is not as efficient or as usable as it could be:
- #777
- #652
- #1566
With the stabilisation of the libf3d API and general improvement of the behavior of the libf3d, it seems that now would be a great time to try and improve it again, in a similar direction as the first implementation, but of course, one would need to avoid the issues that the initial implementation had where it would crash fully a user computer if the libf3d segfaults.
Reading microsoft documentation on that regards, it looks like thumbnail should run in a separate process automatically.
Doc
- Previous implementation: https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/pull/137
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/desktop/legacy/ee330724(v=vs.85)
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions//bb776855(v=vs.85)
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/thumbcache/nn-thumbcache-ithumbnailprovider
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/building-thumbnail-providers
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/thumbnail-providers
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/thumbnail-provider-guidelines
@jpouderoux your contribution would be very much appreciated here, especially if you remember why you had to use f3d executable to avoid the explorer crash :)
@jpouderoux your contribution would be very much appreciated here, especially if you remember why you had to use f3d executable to avoid the explorer crash :)
Sorry, I just saw your comment. I will try to give a look at it later this week :)
Thanks a lot @jpouderoux ! Do not hesitate to reach out :)
BTW we have a discord now if thats your thing: https://discord.f3d.app
@jpouderoux did you had a chance to test with the OBJ or STL format since they support streaming now ?