Thumbnailer Bridge

This tool makes requests to create thumbnails through D-Bus following org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Thumbnailer1 specification. It doesn't create thumbnails on it's own, but acts as a bridge between your file manager and thumbnailer.

To create thumbnails you will need a daemon, like tumbler.

Features

What are the advantages of using this instead of a shell script with dbus-send?

• Ease of use.
• Multithreading.
• Paths with commas and other symbols not compatible with dbus-send.
• Direct usage of libmagic and dbus without additional processes.

Dependencies

• dbus (communication)
• libmagic (mime detection)

Usage

Bridge between your file manager and thumbnail daemon.

Usage: thumbnailer-bridge [OPTIONS] [FILE]...

Arguments:
  [FILE]...  

Options:
  -t, --thumbnail              Print path to thumbnail if it exists and up to date
  -f, --flavor <FLAVOR>        Flavor of the thumbnails [default: normal]
  -s, --scheduler <SCHEDULER>  Scheduler for thumbnail generation [default: default]
  -u, --unchecked              Do not check if thumbnail already exists and up to date
  -l, --listen                 Listen for notifications
      --list-flavors           List supported schedulers
      --list-schedulers        List supported thumbnail flavors
      --list-mime              List supported media types
  -h, --help                   Print help
  -V, --version                Print version

This is how you request thumbnails. Flavor -f or --flavor is usually responsible for the size of a thumbnail.

thumbnailer-bridge -f x-large $PWD/*

I recommend you to use full path to your current directory that your file manager provides, instead of using relative path, this way, if you're inside a sym-linked location /home/user/pictures -> /mnt/nas, your thumbnails will be preserved if you decide to remount original location /home/user/pictures -> /mnt/nas-old

If you want to be notified when thumbnails are ready to use, add --listen flag.

$ thumbnailer-bridge --listen
/home/user/pictures/meal-2023-02-22.png
/home/user/pictures/booty.jpg
/home/user/books/how_to_eat_chicken.epub
...

You will find your thumbnails at ${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-~/.cache}/thumbnails/(flavor)/.

To find a thumbnail, corresponding to your file, you can use -t or --thumbnail flag.

$ thumbnailer-bridge -f x-large -t ~/pictures/cat.png
/home/user/.cache/thumbnails/x-large/722b4dbaa8bf716e9f9f7f33f72fd9d4.png

For additional information: Thumbnail Managing Standard.

Installation

Can be installed from crates.io with cargo:

cargo install thumbnailer-bridge

Building

To build this little thing, you'll need some Rust.

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Elvyria/thumbnailer-bridge
cd thumbnailer-bridge
cargo build --release