icon previews pictures and movies

[biohazard6969]

hey, just wondering how to get files like pictures and mpg movies to show a preview of the file in the icon, like in XP with the pictures folder, i know that i have this on my other computer, imac G4, i don't want to do the thing like with folder actions, isn't there a default setting that will do this for me?

 

[mkrishnan]

Go to view options (you can get to it from the gear-shaped icon in the finder window) and select the "Show Icon Preview" option. The folder may have to be in the icon view before this option is available to you.

 

[mad jew]

Just out of interest, would it use up a significant amount of resources doing this? Does anyone know if it'll slow down the Finder because I've been getting more and more bouncing beachballs recently.

 

[mkrishnan]

I would recommend setting it to do this for your pictures folder and maybe your movies folder? (I'm not actually sure if this works for movies?). I don't think it would make Finder slower for other folders when these aren't open....

 

[mad jew]

Thanks mkrishnan. It'd be pretty nice to see the pictures as they are rather than just the Preview.app icon.

 

[mkrishnan]

In addition to turning on the preview for the Pictures folder, I also made the icons huge, just for that folder (80x80, I think). I find it works out well. I don't know of an easy way, though, to cascade this to the subfolders, without applying it to all folders. So my iPhoto library isn't setup like this, since its in a subfolder. But I have some desktop images and other misc. T in my Pictures root, so it works for that. I don't manually snoop my iPhoto library often anyway.

 

[mad jew]

I don't manually snoop my iPhoto library often anyway.

Yeah, I just tried to then... Talk about a rabbit warren! When you consider how well iTunes organises your music, it just seems so weird that OSX makes such a mess of your photo directories.

 

[mkrishnan]

Yeah, I just tried to then... Talk about a rabbit warren! When you consider how well iTunes organises your music, it just seems so weird that OSX makes such a mess of your photo directories.

Well, it looks good as long as you're in iPhoto!