What good is thumbnail for? 2

[roswald]

Am I missing something or is the thumbnail so small it makes a postage stamp look huge?
Can anyone elaborate on the value of the thumbnail in CE?

I was hoping it would give the user a sample of report content, layout, formatting by showing the first page but I can only see a miniscule icon.
Am I missing something like a mouseover that would give you an enlarged image of the thumbnail?
Please advise.

Thanks,

bob

 

[Turkbear]

Hi, I have never found the thumbnail feature to be of any real use...We put a sample copy of each report's first page of output on the web site ( as an HTML file) and have a button on our user-interface page for viewing it...

 

[synapsevampire]

Do you know what version of CE you have?

In 8 or 8.5 I think that there was an alternative view which was larger.

The other nuisance is the default message (at least in CE 9) which says click on a report thumbnail to see a preview, which brings up your menu options, not a preview.

-k

 

[rhinok]

The purpose of the thumbnails is to give the user a graphic representation of the report. This is only worthwhile if a report has a distinctive cover page, especially since the image is so small in ePortfolio / Web Desktop.

In the Launchpad (or User Launchpad for CE10), there is a Thumbnail Viewer sample that displays much larger images. You can use this viewer if you like, or you might be able to pull some code from its .csp pages and customize your ePortfolio (clicking the small image will launch a larger one, for example).

~Kurt

 

[synapsevampire]

Kurt: That's what I was trying to reference as well, but couldn't remember the name.

It's Report Thumbnail Client under the Client Samples Page.

-k

 

[mdwyer]

If you want to tweak the csp code you can expand the thumbnail in CE9. Locate the following line in available.csp and change the "width='40'" to a number like 80 or 120. (Search for "thumbnail.csp".)

Response.Write("<img src='thumbnail.csp?id=" + GetID(obj) + "' name='TN_" + obj.ID + "' class='list' width='[b]40[/b]' alt='"+L_THUMBNAIL_TEXT+"' border='1' align='left'>");

The other nuisance is the default message (at least in CE 9) which says click on a report thumbnail to see a preview, which brings up your menu options, not a preview.

This one can also be easily changed in the Localization section of available.csp:

var L_THUMBNAIL_TEXT = "Click the report name for a menu of available actions.";// Changed from "Click on a report thumbnail to see the preview."; because the message is inaccurate and unnecessary.

 

[synapsevampire]

Nice, mdwyer (*)!

-k

 

[roswald]

Thank you all for your well constructed advice. We are using CE9 at the moment.
I did modify the .csp to change the size of the thumbnail, (Thanks Mdwyer!), but even at 120 all you really accomplish is the loss of real estate. By the time I got the thumbnail to a size that accomplishes what I want, the users would be frustrated out of their minds trying to navigate through ePortfolio.

Turkbear, could you give me a brief overview of how you were able to capture the first page of each report into a HTML. It would be nice to have the ability to click on the thumbnail and see an actual HTML doc showing the first page.
If anyone (perhaps Rhinok), has any solutions, please share them with me if possible.

One final note... I contacted BO support and the tech had no idea what the Report Thumbnail Client was. Strange!

Bob

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I export the report from CR ( I am using 8.5 Pro)
in DHTML format and choose ( when presented on the option page) to have only page 1 exported..