Enlarge tiny thumbnail images in the "Open File" dialog

[pixfan]

Hi,

 

in the Mac Finder, I use 256x256 Pixel thumbnails for preview. Is it possible to enlarge the quite tiny thumbnail images in the dialog for open images in Affinity Photo?

 

I would really appreciate this.

 

Thanks for your answer.

 

Paul

 

[pixfan]

Just to bring it up. Hopefully, someone can confirm.

 

Best regards

Paul

[Fixx]

I was about to say that preview in open dialog is as big as you care to drag the window but possibly that is a feature of Default Folder X.

[R C-R]

I could be wrong but I think the Open dialog in Affinity for Mac works just like in other apps that use the standard open file API provided by the OS for that purpose. For example, compare the Open dialog in Apple's Preview app to the Affinity one. At least on my system, in each of the icon, list, & column views there is a default size for previews & it is the same for both apps.

 

There is no slider in icon view like there is for Finder to adjust icon size & neither that nor any of the other view options I can set in Finder windows has any effect on the Open dialogs in Affinity, Preview, etc. (This might be different if I had some system level "enhancement" software installed like Default Folder X, but I avoid that kind of software because it can sometimes cause difficult to troubleshoot issues with apps that expect the standard open file API to be in use.) 

 

<tl;dr>

There is an option in Affinity preferences > General to save thumbnails (previews) with documents. If this option is disabled, in both Finder & Open dialog windows, you just get the generic document type icon provided by the app (which for Affinity it is the same as the application icon). That comes from an ".icns" resource file, which actually is a set of fixed-size pixel images of different dimensions (like 1024X1024 & 256X256, all the way down to 16X16). Finder smoothly interpolates the 'in between' sizes in icon view (but never uses the 'jumbo' 1024 px icon) & in the list view only gives you a choice of two smallish icon sizes.

</tl;dr>

 

I am not sure about the actual pixel dimensions of the Affinity preview thumbnails, but they seem to provide about 512 px resolution, so I do not think there is anything Affinity can do about increasing the thumbnail size in open dialogs that it has not already done.

[LilleG]

I haven't found any way to enlarge the thumbnails but Quick Look via the spacebar does work in the Open dialog window.  Not perfect but better than trial and error to find the exact one you want.

[R C-R]

I sometimes use the Quick Look workaround LilleG just mentioned. It may be helpful to know that if you use it, once a file is selected in the open dialog & you tap the spacebar to bring up the Quick Look window, you can use the cursor keys to change the file the window shows without having to close & reopen it for each of them. In icon view, use all four keys to navigate among the files; in list views you just need to use the up/down keys.

 

More often, I just use Finder to open files in the Affinity apps so I can use whichever Finder view & options I want to find the file I am interested in. To simplify that process, I have enabled the Finder > Advanced preference to show all filename extensions. That way, I can tell at a glance which files are native .afdesign or .afphoto files & will open in the respective app if I double-click them & which are the other "Affinity Openable" file types that may require the right-click "Open with" context menu option to open in the desired Affinity app.

 

To make this even easier, I have also used the "Get Info" Finder window "Open with:" option to set one or more file types (for now for me only .png & .gif) to open with an Affinity app (for me Affinity Photo) as the default. That way, those file types also automatically open in the Affinity app with a double-click in Finder.

 

So one way or another, there is a way to see larger previews without relying on Affinity to change anything, at least for Mac users.

[LilleG]

I sometimes use the Quick Look workaround LilleG just mentioned. It may be helpful to know that if you use it, once a file is selected in the open dialog & you tap the spacebar to bring up the Quick Look window, you can use the cursor keys to change the file the window shows without having to close & reopen it for each of them. In icon view, use all four keys to navigate among the files; in list views you just need to use the up/down keys.

 

 

 

Thanks for adding that, R C-R.  It does make the Quick Look option much easier to use efficiently.

[pixfan]

Thank you for your response! Is there a way to set the thumbnail size for the whole Mac system? Set "Standard" does not work. If you chance to other folders, just the small images are shown.

[R C-R]

I don't think there is any way to set thumbnail or preview size systemwide. I'm also not sure what you mean by "Set 'Standard.'" Where do you see that?