What is Ethumb?¶
Ethumb will use Evas to generate thumbnail images of given files. The API allows great customization of the generated files and also helps compling to FreeDesktop.Org Thumbnail Specification.
(http://specifications.freedesktop.org/thumbnail-spec/thumbnail-spec-latest.html)
However, thumbnailing can be an expensive process that will impact your application experience, blocking animations and user interaction during the generation. Another problem is that one should try to cache the thumbnails in a place that other applications can benefit from the file.
EthumbClient
exists to solve this. It will
communicate with a server using standard D-Bus protocol. The server will use
Ethumb
itself to generate the thumbnail images and cache
them using FreeDesktop.Org standard. It is recommended that most applications
use EthumbClient
instead of
Ethumb
directly.
Another difference is that one Ethumb
instance
can only generate a single thumbnail at a given time, so you must implement
some sort of queue mechanism if you need more than one. Instead
EthumbClient
is a able to receive more than one
request at the same time.
Recommended reading:
Ethumb
to generate thumbnails in the local process.
EthumbClient
to generate thumbnails using a server (recommended).