No preview images for FreeCAD 1.1.1 in Fedora 44 KDE Dolphin

Project Discussion
1

I work with FreeCAD daily and have been missing a thumbnailer for FreeCAD files since Fedora 43. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to program something like that; I’m just a user. It would make my work much easier if I could see the preview images. Is anyone able to create one? Or who should I contact? Have a nice day and best regards from Austria, René

3

This is the results of googling “how to generate freecad thumbnails in gnome” for me. (google results vary by region thus posting.)

Generating FreeCAD thumbnails in GNOME (Nautilus file manager) involves ensuring FreeCAD saves a preview image within the .FCStd file and setting up a thumbnailer script so GNOME can read it.

Step 1: Enable Thumbnails in FreeCAD

First, you must configure FreeCAD to generate a thumbnail image when saving files.

  1. Open FreeCAD.

  2. Go to Edit > Preferences (or FreeCAD > Preferences on macOS).

  3. Select General and then the Storage tab.

  4. Check the box Save thumbnail into project.

  5. Optional: Check “Add the program logo to the generated thumbnail” to identify it easily.

  6. Save your document. You must save at least once for the thumbnail to be generated.

Step 2: Configure GNOME to Display Thumbnails

GNOME needs to know how to extract the PNG image from the FreeCAD archive. This is done by installing a .thumbnailer file.

  1. Locate the freecad-thumbnailer script: If you installed FreeCAD via a package manager, it might already be in your path. If you are using an AppImage, you may need to find or create this script (often found in the FreeCAD GitHub repository).

  2. Create the Thumbnailer file: Create a file named freecad.thumbnailer in /usr/share/thumbnailers/ (requires root) or ~/.local/share/thumbnailers/ (for user-specific).

  3. Add the following content to the file:

    ini

    [Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=freecad-thumbnailer
Exec=freecad-thumbnailer -s %s %i %o
MimeType=application/x-extension-fcstd;

    Use code with caution.

  4. Ensure freecad-thumbnailer is executable: The script referenced in TryExec must exist in your system path and be executable.

Step 3: Refresh GNOME Thumbnails

After setting up the thumbnailer, you may need to clear the existing cache for them to appear.

  1. Open a terminal.

  2. Clear the thumbnail cache:

    bash

    rm ~/.cache/thumbnails/* -rf

    Use code with caution.

  3. Restart Nautilus (GNOME Files) by typing nautilus -q or logging out and back in.

If you are using an appimage or kde it will vary slightly from this.

4

Which icon theme do you use and do you know if that theme has an image for FreeCAD?

5

The AI ​​told me that too, but there’s no thumbnailer for KDE 6.6 or Fedora 44 on GitHub, only for KDE5, and I don’t want to try that.

6

I’m using the standard Breeze dark theme with the standard KDE icons.

7

KDE 6.6 supports the standard thumbnailer specification used by other desktop environments like Gnome. So the icon file format gnome creates will work with KDE 6.6. So chances are pretty high you can use the thumbnailer for Gnome and it will work. Worst case scenario is you are deleting .cache/thumbnails and regenerate them again. (I assume you did this once already trying to debug, it doesn’t break anything by doing it, but it does have to rebuild all the icon files.)