Create Thumbnails and Change Settings

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Batch Thumbs Main Tutorials Page

This tutorial will get into many of the settings and how to use them. I'll also point out some of the "conveniences" built into B.T.

NOTE - These tutorials are based on version 1.5 of Batch Thumbs. You can download a copy of Batch Thumbs version 1.5 at:

http://harmware.net/bin/BThumbs.zip

1. If it's not already running, start Batch Thumbs. Start>Programs>HarmWare>Batch Thumbs

Batch Thumbs does not use menus, and there are only a few buttons that are anything like a tool bar. But there are nevertheless some features that you can use to make your work with B.T. easier. Let's look at the first screen again:

When you hi-lite a file (by clicking on it in the area numbered "1") it is displayed in miniature in a preview window, in the upper left area numbered "2". If you move the mouse over the image in the Preview Window, a little hint pops up that tells you the full path to the file and the Width and Height of the image in pixels. By clicking on the image in the Preview Window, the full-sized image is displayed in a separate window. Clicking anywhere in the full-sized window closes it. This provides a means to preview the files before you select them for processing.

Another feature of the area numbered "1" is a Popup menu. By right-clicking in either the left or right navigation panes, the following popup menu is displayed:

The menu items are fairly self-explanatory. The one kind of different function is the Create New Directory. When creating thumbnails, I have found that I decide that I should place the thumbnails in a separate folder than the originals, but I don't have one set up. You can either launch Explorer and create a folder that way, or you can use the B.T. dialog:

It requires that you do a little bit of typing. In the box labeled Directory Name the current folder is displayed. In the lower boxes you can see the hierarchy of the current folder. By typing in the Directory Name box, you can create the new Directory. For example, in the dialog below I am about to create a Folder in MyWeb called SampleThumbs:

I just typed in the name of the new folder. When OK is clicked, you will be prompted for permission to create it. When complete, you are right back in B.T. screen where you started, and the new folder is available for use.

The other items of note are the buttons at the top right of the screen. These are always available and do the following:

The D button resets all options to defaults.

The exclamation point with the circular arrow refreshes all the directory/file boxes

The Folder with Magnifying glass launches Windows Explorer

The tiny thumbs up is the "About Box", with program version and other information.

The question mark launches the help file

Other information about the step you are performing can be found in the Helpful Hints box. OK, let's get on with it already....

2. Go back to the Sample Images folder, or the folder you're using for the tutorial. We just need some raw material to work with. We'll limit the selected files to jpg types. Some browsers have trouble displaying bmp, wmf, and emf type files, so we don't want to include those in our selection. From the Input File Selection screen, navigate to the folder. Make sure Create Thumbnails is checked, and in the File Types box select the *.jpg;*.jpeg item to limit the files displayed on the right side. Then click on the Select All button:

3. Create a new directory called SampleThumbs, just as in the example above. Before clicking the Next button, right-click in either the left or right pane and select Create New Directory:

In the dialog for New Directory, just overtype the SampleImages part, changing it to SampleThumbs:

Click OK to create the new directory. If it doesn't already exist, you'll be prompted for permission to create it, to which you can reply "Yes". When you are back at the File Selection screen, your images should still be hi-lited, and you can now click on Next.