Thumbwright 0.1.4: a cleaner, faster right-click menu

Thumbwright 0.1.4: a cleaner, faster right-click menu

Download: Thumbwright-0.1.4-x64.msi below (signed). Or choco upgrade thumbwright.

What you'll notice

• The right-click menu is tidier. Items line up at the left edge again. The photo preview sits on top, with the file's name and size just under it (a plain text line, so screen readers read it). Files without a thumbnail show their icon instead.
• It opens faster. From Windows 11's menu it appears in about 0.15 seconds, down from about 0.6. The preview fills in a moment later.
• "Build thumbnails for this folder" is back on Windows 11's main menu for folders and for a folder's background. It shows progress with a Cancel button for big folders, then a short "Thumbnails ready" message that closes by itself.
• Convert selects the new file in an Explorer window that is already open, every time.
• Every Thumbwright window shows the Thumbwright icon in its title bar, with even margins and a title bar that follows dark mode.
• Workbench pages are lined up, and the installer finally looks like Thumbwright instead of the red Windows Installer defaults.
• App packages (APK, NuGet, VSIX, Minecraft) have their own family in the format list instead of sitting under Design.

Good to know

• The first click on the Windows 11 menu after you sign in or restart Explorer can take about a second, while Windows starts the menu component. Later clicks are fast.
• Workbench's window body stays light in dark mode; only its title bar goes dark (tracked in #30).

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Technical changes

Changed

• App, extension and game packages have their own Package family instead of being listed
  under Design: APK, APKS, XAPK, APKM, NuGet (.nupkg), Visual Studio extensions (.vsix)
  and Minecraft Bedrock packs, add-ons, worlds and world templates. twctl formats, the
  website's format browser and the README count them separately. The design and cad
  starter kits no longer turn on these types; thumbnails and everything still do.
• The Windows 11 right-click popup opens without waiting for the file's preview. It used
  to hold back until Windows handed over the thumbnail, so it appeared after about 125 to
  140 ms; it now appears after about 80 to 95 ms (median of warm runs on the development
  machine, from starting twctl to the menu on screen). The file name and size are in the
  menu at once, with an empty box for the thumbnail above them, and the thumbnail is drawn
  into the box a few tens of milliseconds later. The box is always as tall as the largest
  thumbnail, so a wide picture is centred in it instead of the menu shrinking to fit it. For
  a file Windows has no thumbnail for (a text file, say) the box shows the file's icon,
  centred, so the menu never changes size or moves after it opens.

Fixed

• Right-click menu: rows no longer start halfway across (#27). With a preview at the top,
  every item was pushed right to where the thumbnail ended, in the Windows 11 popup and in the
  classic menu's Thumbwright submenu. The cause: the thumbnail was attached as the header's
  menu bitmap, and Windows reserves one bitmap column of that width for every row. The header
  is now two rows: the thumbnail on its own row, and under it an ordinary text row with the
  file name and size. Items start at the normal left edge, the thumbnail lines up with them,
  and the menu keeps its Windows look in light and dark. The name and size are native menu
  text, so screen readers read them, with or without a thumbnail.
• "Build thumbnails for this folder" is on the Windows 11 menu (#26), for a folder and
  for a folder's background. Windows 11 shows only packaged verbs at the top level, and the
  folder entry was a classic handler only, so it was hidden under "Show more options". It is
  now a packaged verb too, and the classic entry steps aside while the package is registered,
  so "Show more options" does not list it twice.
• "Convert to" selects the new file in an Explorer window that is already open. When the
  output replaced a file deleted moments earlier, the window had not yet caught up and cleared
  its selection instead. Thumbwright now tells the shell about the new file (a flushed
  SHChangeNotify) before asking Explorer to select it; 10 of 10 runs selected it.
• "Build thumbnails for this folder" no longer ends in a box you must click OK on. It now
  behaves like the other menu actions: a progress window with Cancel when the folder takes a
  while ("Building thumbnails for 40 files... 2 of 40"), then a short confirmation that closes
  on its own ("Thumbnails ready for 40 files"). Only a failure still opens a message box.
• Every Thumbwright window shows the Thumbwright icon in its title bar, not just in the
  taskbar: progress windows, prompts (for example "Rename with pattern"), text windows and
  message boxes in both twctl and Workbench. Their title bars follow dark mode like
  Workbench's.
• Window layout: the progress window's right margin was cut off by the window frame, and
  the rename prompt had uneven margins, a grey box behind its label and an old system font.
  Both are now laid out inside the window's client area with even margins, in Segoe UI.
  Workbench's message boxes say "Thumbwright Workbench" instead of the old name "Thumbwright
  Settings".
• Workbench pages are aligned and use the current names (#28). The Menu page said
  "Settings is always in the menu" and "Build thumbnails here"; it now says "Thumbwright
  Workbench" and "Build thumbnails for this folder", as the menu does. The General and
  Thumbnails pages share one label column, input column and hint column, with ranges written
  as "1-100" everywhere, and the General page's inputs sit next to their labels with a right
  margin. The File types status line no longer wraps over the search box.

SHA-256

ce8fcdea031960728815d56717007cef0a9fc33816d5e30f4f759d104c76d3b0  Thumbwright-0.1.4-x64.msi
0837fd563958fdec0a9ffaa9564c4360c2c1aa900dcf34d86edc6db4c135508c  twctl.exe
e7609bdcbf06254e3b7bfe4f3f2eaf3dd5372f989b485e3e73fbb788c958fd9c  tw-worker.exe
2e7443004a35597e0a52dc511fb56dafe3b62a841f0cde2cfb57386294e656cb  thumbwright_shell.dll
0d7af52f1f675389f74d3e6a9ed94ba0fefa94bd5d02b155e0173370934ccf0a  thumbwright-settings.exe
4ac5a13856201db588fcb8e9d115703885f3de634c4a88bf8811e8f8fe929b95  Thumbwright.msix