VintaSoft Imaging .NET SDK 12.1: Documentation for .NET developer
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    View thumbnails in WinForms
    In This Topic
    ThumbnailViewer is a WinForms control designed to display thumbnails of associated image collection.

    ThumbnailViewer can work separately
    ThumbnailViewer can work as a slave viewer of another ImageViewer or ThumbnailViewer

    Here is an example that shows how to load images to ImageViewer, link ImageViewer with ThumbnailViewer and invert the first image in the image collection - the image in ImageViewer and the thumbnail in ThumbnailViewer will be inverted:
    imageViewer1.Images.Add("myimages.tif");
thumbnailViewer1.MasterViewer = imageViewer1;
imageViewer1.Images[0].Invert();

    imageViewer1.Images.Add("myimages.tif")
thumbnailViewer1.MasterViewer = imageViewer1
imageViewer1.Images(0).Invert()


    Thumbnail size

    Thumbnails have 2 sizes:
    Physical size of thumbnails can be set with the ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailSize property. The minimum physical size of thumbnail is 32x32 pixels, the maximum physical size of thumbnail is 1024x1024 pixels.

    Visible size of thumbnails can be set with the ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailScale property. Visible size is calculated as multiplication of physical size and scaling factor.
    Here is a list of scaling factors:

    2 blocks of memory can be allocated for thumbnails:
    Old thumbnails will be destroyed (used memory will be freed) and new thumbnails will be created (new memory for original thumbnails will be allocated) when ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailSize is changed.

    Existing thumbnails are scaled when ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailScale is changed, memory for scaled thumbnails is allocated if ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailScale is not equal Normal.

    Important: Do not use large size of thumbnails if this is not necessary.


    Thumbnail appearance and caption

    Define thumbnail appearance using properties

    The ThumbnailAppearance class allows to define the thumbnail appearance using the properties: back color, border color, border style and border width of thumbnail.

    ThumbnailViewer has properties, which allow to define the "standard" thumbnail appearances:

    Also ThumbnailViewer allows to set the thumbnail appearance on the fly. For doing this is necessary to subscribe to the ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailAppearanceSelected event and change the thumbnail appearance in the event handler.

    Define thumbnail caption using properties

    The ThumbnailCaption class allows to define the thumbnail caption: caption format, padding, anchor, text font, text color.

    The ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailCaption property allows to get or set caption of thumbnail in thumbnail viewer.

    Draw the thumbnail in thumbnail viewer

    If you cannot define the thumbnail appearance or caption using properties, you can use the low-level functionality - the ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailPainting and ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailPainted events, i.e. draw graphics under thumbnail in handler of ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailPainting event and/or draw graphics over thumbnail in handler of ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailPainted event.

    Examples

    Thumbnail Viewer Demo and Simple Demos projects show how to create thumbnail viewers with custom appearances.


    Tooltip of thumbnails

    ThumbnailViewer allows to show tooltips for thumbnails.

    Tooltips can be generated automatically or specified manually

    Thumbnail viewer events

    ThumbnailViewer can raise the following events:

    Thumbnail rendering

    ThumbnailViewer can render thumbnails in multiple threads. Count of rendering threads can be get/set using the ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailRenderingThreadCount property. By default ThumbnailViewer renders thumbnails in a single thread.

    All thumbnails are generated by default. ThumbnailViewer.GenerateOnlyVisibleThumbnails property allows to generate only visible thumbnails, this can be necessary for slow computers.


    Context menus of thumbnail viewer

    The ThumbnailViewer.ContextMenuStrip property allows to set the context menu, which is associated with the thumbnail viewer.

    The ThumbnailViewer.ThumbnailContextMenuStrip property allows to set the context menu, which is associated with a single thumbnail. The ThumbnailViewer.DisableThumbnailContextMenu property allows to disable the context menu for a single thumbnail.


    Hot keys of thumbnail viewer

    ThumbnailViewer has hot keys:
    Hot keys can be enabled/disabled with the ImageViewerBase.ShortcutCopy, ImageViewerBase.ShortcutCut, ImageViewerBase.ShortcutInsert, ImageViewerBase.ShortcutDelete, ImageViewerBase.ShortcutSelectAll properties.
    Behaviour of hot keys can be overriden with the ImageViewerBase.DoCopy, ImageViewerBase.DoCut, ImageViewerBase.DoInsert, ImageViewerBase.DoDelete, ImageViewerBase.DoSelectAll methods.


    Select multiple thumbnail in thumbnail viewer

    ThumbnailViewer allows to select several thumbnails at the same time, indices of selected thumbnails can be accessed with the ThumbnailViewer.SelectedIndices property.

    ThumbnailViewer.SelectedIndices is a "snapshot" of indices collection (read only) of allocated thumbnails. If you work with a copy of the collection, you must note that the ThumbnailViewer.SelectedIndices property could be changed depending on the user's actions and your copy may become irrelevant.


    Drag-and-drop thumbnails in thumbnail viewer

    ThumbnailViewer allows to drag-and-drop thumbnails. In order to drag the thumbnail, just hover your cursor on it, hold left mouse button and pull the cursor to the desired position. Thumbnails drag-and-drop process changes their indexes in the ImageViewerBase.Images collection, which means that indexes in the ThumbnailViewer.SelectedIndices collection will change too. That's why we do not recommend using a copy of this collection.

    Drag-and-drop feature can be enabled/disabled with the ThumbnailViewer.AllowDrop or ThumbnailViewer.AllowDrag properties.


     

     

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