Using the actual Thumbnail attribute in Tracker

While working on my earlier post about updating the Thumbnail application, I was reminded of a nagging irritation I've had not only since I started using Thumbnail, but especially since larger icon size options in tracker were added by John Scipione back in hrev44422.

In essence the problem is that currently Tracker uses either the BEOS:M:STD_ICON or BEOS:L:STD_ICON attributes to display the icon for the file in Tracker. But since these icons come from more than 15 years ago back in the BeOS days, those icon sizes are 16px and 32px respectively, on top of being dithered. (See the "GetIcon(), SetIcon(), GetTrackerIcon()" section of the BNodeInfo page in the BeBook for more info.)

While those may not look too terrible at those very small sizes (and even that is definitely arguable), the problem is that the 32px BEOS:L:STD_ICON is the biggest one we have to work with when it comes to showing a preview of the actual image for image files. So this gets scaled up double for even 64px sizes, triple for 96px, and quadruple for 128px sizes.

You can see the result of this for 96px sizes in the image below showing the current way it's done. And that's not even the worst example.

Now, what I noticed while tweaking the binaries for that earlier release was that there is also a GRAFX:Thumbnail attribute set, which includes a high quality (up to) 96px actual thumbnail version of the image. I kept finding myself wondering why the heck Tracker refused to use this far superior thumbnail even when I was using the largest icon size options.

I haven't gotten an answer to that question yet... as to whether or not it just hasn't been coded yet... or there is actually an ideological reason why not to do it, or even something architectural preventing it.

In the meantime, here are two images... the first of the way it is now... and the second showing how it could look if Tracker used the GRAFX:Thumbnail attribute instead.

Current Tracker settings

Mockup of using Thumbnail attribute

Some tweaks and updates to Thumbnail

Awhile back I ran across a handy little program called Thumbnail that could be used to create embedded thumbnails (and other info, like image dimensions) in the resources of image files so that, for instance, the image icons would actually show little previews of the image itself, and you could sort the images by dimensions, etc.

Unfortunately the way it handled the image dimension attributes was a bit different than what is used by Tracker in Haiku today. So Haiku user bbjimmy did some manual tweaks to the app's resources (hex editing the binaries using DiskProbe) and brought it a little more up to date to be functional with Haiku today.

Inspired by this, I decided to also create a new HVIF icon for it: Thumbnail.hvif.zip

I also think it would be great to be able to get our hands on the original source code, but thus far I haven't had any luck tracking down the author, Thorsten Seitz, who wrote the app around 15 years ago. :(

So in the meantime, you can download the file(s) here:

Here is the original package that was made for BeOS R4. This doesn't work quite right with Haiku.

Here is the updated version for Haiku which includes the English and German versions, updated documentation, and the HVIF icon for it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I had a few other thoughts while putting this new package together, but I'll save them for another post. ;)

A Haiku style makeover for the classic Minesweeper

This all started with me noticing an email on the Haiku development mailing list mentioning a "Tri-Edge AI" having done a Minesweeper game as part of the Google Code-In 2012.

After downloading, compiling, and testing it out in Haiku, I felt like seeing if I could give it an improved Haiku look and feel. I also had a number of ideas on how it might be improved as a demo and game for Haiku, since it is small enough that it seems like it could be an excellent demonstration of how to program a good looking program sticking closely to the Haiku look, feel, and way of programming using the Haiku API.

For example, instead of using PNG image resources I thought we could use HVIF icons along with the native Haiku API to draw the game board and graphics in the game. This should allow us to scale the game board to make it more easily seen for the visually impaired, reduce the size of the over-all package (by reducing the graphic resources by ~75%), and further serve as a good demo of using the Haiku API to its fullest.

I also question the need for some of the added features in Tri-Edge AI's version of the game, since the goal here is to basically develop a modern Haiku version of the original BeOS Minesweeper game that was bundled with the OS. That game lacked animations, sound effects, etc... and as such for a small bundled application I think those things are too much for the intended goal. I'd strip it down to the more basic functionality and put the extra work into smoothing the aesthetics in the Haiku style, giving it some flexibility of the type you find in the Layout Kit (leveraging the API and native widgets, font rendering, etc rather than brute forcing everything with images), the use of HVIF vector icons for saving file size and allowing flexibility in displaying the images, and so on. Make it really illustrate what the Haiku API and associated technologies have to offer while still sticking very close to the functionality and feel of the original BeOS game.

(I'm not trying to knock some of the additions. For instance I think the little explosions are cute, and sounds could be neat... but think they're just overkill for a basic demo/game and too much of a departure from the original for a bundled demo/game.)

I've done up 3 mockups so far of the "in game", "game over", and "game won" screens to give an idea of the look/feel I'm going for.

The sad part is that I don't have the programming skills yet to accomplish this myself, so I'm hoping that someone who does can implement the changes. ;) heh

I can certainly contribute to the design, and I can do the icons etc... I just can't write more than the most super beginner level basic C++.

I've written up an enhancement ticket on the Haiku development tracker for later official reference.

UPDATE: Check out my updated designs for this in my post titled "A Haiku Minesweeper update and a theme for BeMines".