Is there a way to show a folder with thumbnails of the images and video it contains?

I'm making a Windows program to select from various images or videos but I can't find a way to show the contents of a folder. I've tried the Explorer object but that only shows a list or detailed list or the file-type icon (such as the Q for Quicktime). Is there a way to show the files in a folder with their thumbnails? It can't be something that's hard-coded though because the files will change from time to time.

Also there's a slight chance that I'll be doing an Android version, so if a method can be found that works on that too, I'd be extra happy.

Is this maybe just something that would need to be done by Clickteam (adding a "Thumbnails" option)?

I think you can program it by your own. Basically you gathered list of files from a folder then spread the image filenames to any image object to load it. No idea about generating a still image from a video file tho.

Yeah, that's the problem (one of the problems, I guess). A real Windows Explorer window shows thumbnails when you set the folder's View type to "Icons" and that's what I'd like (Large or Extra Large). The app I'm writing is very simple: click on a thumbnail to view an image, if it's an image, or play the video if it's a video.

Use the Common Dialogue Box Object. This allows you to open an Open dialogue box which the user can set to display the icons with the same options as in Windows. Not sure if it will let you select multiple files at once so the user would need to select each file, one at a time, which might not be what you're after.

Thanks for the idea Paul. Unfortunately that won't work for what I need (I don't need multi-select by the way). This is a kiosk-type thing, and the Common Dialog Box has a tree on the left, but I don't want the user to be able to access any other folders or drives. Also, it's a moveable, closeable window, which I don't want. The Explorer object isn't like that-- it's not a window that opens over the program window, and you have the option of not having it display the tree. I think this is either going to need Clickteam to add the option to display thumbnails, or, if the project gets the go-ahead, I might need to pay someone to write a custom extension for me.

Hi fwtep,
A while ago, I have seen that using ActiveX it's possible to display thumbnail the same way as in Windows Explorer. That's an option. But if you are planning to release your project on Android, you'd better code it yourself using common CF's extensions.
ouly

There's going to be some differences regardless for multimedia between the two platforms, such as the extensions for DirectShow and the video extension for Android.

I'm not aware of any extension that displays thumbnails, but I have would of thought this would work: (using the built-in objects)

Thumbnails for images should be easier to begin with. You'll need to make your own browser layout and have the Picture object load each file every time, but this will be inefficient (especially large files) as they're not thumbnail quality but rather the full image.

To that, you could run a sub-app in the background (with a small frame size so it's thumbnailed-size) that will load each image and then save it again using the Screen Capture object to a temporary location or with the application's data folder, depending on its storage needs. Like just mentioned, your main frame could load this tiny image that is a thumbnail of the full picture for each file (the Tree List object may help out with this)

The downside to this is that it is unlikely to work as well on Android. (Android does not support sub-apps)... I'm not too sure if it might work out if it's out of the frame's view though but mobile devices won't be as powerful as the desktop will.

A similar thing again could be done for videos (ensuring the audio is muted, and the playback time could be skipped to half way) but this will probably take longer to process.

Sub-apps work fine on Android.

See here for a picture browser www.andersriggelsen.dk/mmf2_examples.php

Hope it will help you