Setting Thumbnail and Extended Preview Generation Options

You may set thumbnail and extended preview generation options for each file type defined in the Virtual Ticket system. By default, Virtual Ticket is configured to use the four thumbnailing methods in the following order: Get Preview, Sample, Get Icon, and Use Standard Icon. When, for some reason, the method with the highest priority fails to generate a thumbnail/extended preview, the subsequent method with a lower priority is used.

The order of thumbnailing methods you choose will depend on the file types you commonly use and the type of thumbnail image/extended preview you desire for each file type. To set the order in which the thumbnailing methods should be applied to a file type, consider the availability of the extended information and performance options. Below is a brief comparison of the thumbnailing methods used by Virtual Ticket:

If available, Get Preview is the most efficient and preferred method for generating thumbnail images and extended previews of digital files.

Sample is the most time-consuming thumbnail/extended preview generation method. Although, for some file types (for example, Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop, BMP, etc...) it appears before Get Preview in the list of thumbnailing methods to ensure generation of the quality up-to-date thumbnails/extended previews in cases where no commonly accepted routine exists for saving extended information within digital files.

Use Standard Icon stores only one instance of the thumbnail in the database regardless of the number of digital files recorded in the system. As a result, it is the most space and time efficient method of thumbnailing.

Get Icon is guaranteed to find an icon in the database for each file type. As a result, a thumbnail image of the defined icon will always be available for each file type (as opposed to an extended preview).

Setting thumbnail and extended preview generation options for a file type

1. Open the File Types window by selecting File Types in the Administrator menu.

2. Select the file type you want to edit from the listing of available file types. The Document Type and Extensions fields of the window will provide additional information for the selected file type and will be editable for user-defined file types.
3. Select a thumbnailing method and click the Up/Down buttons ( ) until you have arranged the thumbnailing methods into the order in which you want them to be used by the system when a thumbnail image/extended preview for the file type is created. For information on thumbnailing methods, please refer to the "Thumbnail and Extended Preview Generation Methods" section above.

Tip: To prevent Metadata from being extracted from a file, use either Get icon or Get standard icon as the first thumbnailing method.

4. Click Select Standard Icon... ( ) to change/specify the standard file icon you want Virtual Ticket to use with the Use Standard Icon thumbnailing method. A dialog box will appear, allowing you to choose a file to use as a standard icon for the file type. When finished, click Choose to return to the File Types window.
5. Select the Preview tab to display the options for extracting previews from files.

Note: Preview options are not available for some file types, including User-defined file types, Folders, Text files, and Unknown file types.

6. In the Preview Tab: Select/clear the Extract Extended Preview checkbox to instruct Virtual Ticket if it needs to generate the extended preview for the selected file type. The extended preview method used will depend on the file type selected.
7. In the Preview Tab: Set the extended preview limitation parameters to instruct Virtual Ticket on how to limit the size of the preview that will be saved in the database. Preview options are not available for some file types, including Folders and User-defined file types. Preview options include:

Restrictions - You may elect to set conditions for adding extended previews to the database by specifying the maximum file size or image dimensions for which an extended preview will be generated.

Size Reduction - You may elect to reduce the extended preview image data size to a particular quantity. This option may reduce the extended preview image dimensions and consequently not provide a full size preview of the file.

JPEG Compression - This setting will affect the quality and size of the final extended preview (1- highest compression/lowest preview quality, 10-lowest compression/highest preview quality).

Note: For PDF files, the only condition that can be used to control addition of extended previews to the database is the size of the original file.

8. Click the MetaData tab to display the metadata collection option.

Note: MetaData collection options are not available for User-defined file types, Folders, or Text Files.

9. Enable the Extract XMP Metadata checkbox if you want Virtual Ticket to automatically extract XMP Metadata (including IPTC metadata) saved with the file. Extracted XMP Metadata will be available for review in the Extended Preview Information window, the Extended tab of the Properties window, and XMP Keywords will be extracted and added to the keywords stored in the database for the digital resource.
10. For Microsoft PowerPoint Files Only: Enable the Extract Notes checkbox to extract the Speakers Notes from a Microsoft PowerPoint file. When enabled, Speakers Notes will be extracted and stored with the extracted text content.
11. Click Save ( ). This will save the changes you have made for the file type in the Virtual Ticket database.

When a digital resource of the corresponding file type is added/updated in the database, the system will attempt to generate its thumbnail/extended preview by using the first method in the order specified in the file type definition; if this fails to generate a thumbnail image/extended preview, the system will attempt to use the second method, and so on. A thumbnail will always be generated because the Use Standard Icon method is guaranteed to find an icon.