How to show thumbnail preview

[zvit]

I've seen posts from 2013 mentioning that thumbnails were displayed for copied images, but when I copied a PNG, it only shows the file path. How can I view a thumbnail of the copied image in Ditto?

[sabrogden]

You need to copy something that places cf_dib or png onto the clipboard. Take a screen shot or select and area in paint or any image editor and copy it. From there it will show a thumbnail of the image, press F3 to see it bigger.

[zvit]

That's what I did and what I meant when I said I copied a PNG. As you can see in the screenshot, only the image path is visible to me. I can paste the image itself, but I’m not seeing a thumbnail.

[sabrogden]

However you are copying the png it's putting a copied file on the clipboard as a CF_HDROP (copied file). If you press alt-enter to open the clip properties you should see CF_HDROP, you want to see CF_DIB or PNG for a copied image. Try copying a selection in paint.

[zvit]

Yes, copying selections in Paint register as CF_DIB, and display a thumbnail. However, most clipboard images come from screenshots or file copies rather than manual selections. Other clipboard managers show thumbnails for all image sources. Any reason Ditto doesn't?

[deepdvd]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't want this "feature" ^ to show a thumbnail of the image source. I wouldn't want Ditto to try to preview PDFs or other documents either that I simply copied the path of the file for.

Copying a file isn't the same as copying an actual image. When you copy an image, it puts that actual image into the clipboard, not the path of the file to copy.

[sabrogden]

No plans to show file previews. Check how you are doing screen shots, windows snipping tool does does not do files and places cf_dib and png on the clipboard.

[zvit]

@deepdvd I’m not referring to situations where I copied a file path. I mean actually copying a PNG file to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere. I’d love for Ditto to show a thumbnail of copied images, so I can preview them and know what they look like before pasting. Just seeing a filename like "window_screenshot_20250221_131017" doesn’t tell me anything about the image’s content.

@sabrogden I used to use ShareX with a setting that copies the screenshot to the clipboard right after capturing it, allowing me to paste it somewhere else. I haven't tested Ditto with ShareX. I now use a custom Python script for taking screenshots, triggered by a gaming mouse button. Once the screenshot is taken, it executes a .bat file to copy the image to the clipboard.

@echo off
set "img_path=%~1"
"C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -command ^
"Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms; ^
 Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO; ^
 $file = Get-Item -Path '%img_path%'; ^
 [System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetFileDropList(([System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection]($file.FullName))); ^
 Write-Output 'Image successfully copied to clipboard' "

[deepdvd]

@zvit Yeah, I'm aware of what you mean, and I think it's a bad idea. You're copying a file or list of files. Just use your file explorer preview instead of adding bloat to Ditto. It only makes sense to show the image if you can't preview it in the file system, since it's only in the clipboard / ditto database.

What about when you copy 2 files, or 3 files, or some images along with other files? Are you hoping it would show all those images too?