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Thumbnail Generator - An easy way to process thumbnails from a large amount of images

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9 Mar 20031 min read 321.4K   5.3K   88   20
Thumbnail Generator application supporting a bunch of image file types (for both: source images and target thumbnails), fixed target image size as well as ratio calculation, and full internationalization.

Sample Image - ThumbGenerator/ThumbGenerator.png

Introduction

I have always had problems generating thumbnails from a large amount of images quickly and easily. Also standard graphic programs couldn't meet my needs - or it simply took too much time handling image after image.

Benefits

This Thumbnail Generator is qualified for generating thumbnails of images you are publishing on the Internet. Pre-generated thumbnails save you processor utilization and disk space (if you're generating thumbnails on the fly) - or user's time and money.

But also converting a large amount of images from one file format to another can be handled easily.

This project might also be an interesting starting point for Win Form rookies. Learn how forms, simple internationalization support and XML are working together! Just download the project source code, all source files are commented.

Supports

Image support

  • Different file formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF) - for both: source images and target thumbnails
  • Self specified thumbnail image extensions
  • Preview of source images and output thumbnails (including information on width, height, ratio)
  • Fixed width, height as well as maintaining aspect ratio
  • Bilinear re-sampling

Generating a ListBox item:

C#
/* Retrieve image to get it's infos */
Image LbxSourceImage = Image.FromFile(filesFromDialog[i]);
imgList.Images.Add(LbxSourceImage);


/* Calculate image ratio */
float Ratio=((float)LbxSourceImage.Width)/((float)LbxSourceImage.Height); 

/* Generates Listboxitem */
ImageListBoxItem lbxItem = new ImageListBoxItem(
    filesFromDialog[i].ToString()+                /* Filename */
    "\r\n"+txtWidth+LbxSourceImage.Width.ToString()+    /* Width    */
    ", "+txtHeight+LbxSourceImage.Height.ToString()+    /* Height   */
    ", "+txtRatio+Ratio.ToString(),i);            /* Ratio    */

lbxSource.Items.Add(lbxItem);

Multilingual support

Also full multilingual support for English and German language is provided. (Feel free to contribute other translations ;) )

Internationalization is managed via XML. All GUI texts are read on startup, from the application configuration file (of course the language can also be changed during a session). The project includes a collection of useful methods for processing XML documents. You can easily use them for your own applications.

The configuration file looks like:

XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<!DOCTYPE Application SYSTEM "Config.dtd">
<Application>
  <Information>
    <Name>Thumbnail Generator</Name>
    <Version>0.8</Version>
  </Information>
  <StdLanguage Type="en"/>
  <Language Type="en">
    <Text GUIRelation="btnGenerateThumb">Generate Thumbnails --></Text>
    <Text GUIRelation="gbxSource">Source:</Text>

...

  </Language>
  <Language Type="de">
    <Text GUIRelation="btnGenerateThumb">Generiere Thumbnails --></Text>
    <Text GUIRelation="gbxSource">Quelle:</Text>
    <Text GUIRelation="gbxTarget">Ziel:</Text>

...

  </Language>
</Application>

Within the application the language information is fetched via XPath. Sample calls:

C#
XPathDocument XPathDoc = new XPathDocument(configFileName);
XPathNavigator nav     = XPathDoc.CreateNavigator();

gbxSource.Text = XmlManager.GetValueFromXPath(nav, 
          "/Application/Language[@Type='"+
          CurrentLang+"']/Text[@GUIRelation='gbxSource']");
gbxTarget.Text = XmlManager.GetValueFromXPath(nav, 
          "/Application/Language[@Type='"+
          CurrentLang+"']/Text[@GUIRelation='gbxTarget']");

History

  • 09. March 2003: Initial release. See section "Supports"

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here


Written By
Web Developer
Germany Germany
Experience:
- Java
- C#
- XML, XSL, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET
- Server administration

- ASM, Visual Basic (poor)
- Linux (poor)

If you have any offers, questions, or project ideas please feel free to contact me.

If you experience any bugs in my software, please report them.

Thank you.

Comments and Discussions

 
Generalsending the Image to another function Pin
dogmatic697-Nov-07 2:43
dogmatic697-Nov-07 2:43 

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