Release Notes for P4Thumb, The Helix Thumbnail Generator Version 2020.1 P4Thumb creates thumbnails of graphic files managed by Helix Core and stores them in the Helix Core server. A thumbnail is a 160x160 pixel PNG representation of the image. P4V displays these thumbnails in the right pane when you choose View > Show Files As Core> (Large/Medium/Small) Thumbnail. P4V does not communicate directly with P4Thumb; instead, it obtains thumbnails from the server. To avoid affecting the performance of Helix server, it is recommended that you run P4Thumb on a separate machine. P4Thumb can communicate with Helix servers on any other platform as long as the server is accessible through the network. For installation instructions, see below. For configuration, startup, and stop information, see the readme.txt file. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supported Platforms Windows 7, 8.1, 10 (x86_64) Linux (x86_64) RHEL 7.4 CentOS 7.4 Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 The above platforms are tested and subject to regression testing on a frequent basis. Errors or bugs discovered in these platforms are prioritized for correction. Any platform not listed above is not actively tested by Perforce. P4V may run on platforms that are not actively tested. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disk Space and Performance The thumbnails are stored in both the journal and checkpoint files in hexadecimal format. Ensure that the server machine running P4Thumb has adequate disk space because checkpointing, restoring from checkpoints, and journalling run more slowly as a result, and the resulting files are larger. Running P4Thumb does not noticeably slow down the Helix server, but the retrieval and display of thumbnails does have some effect on P4V performance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation You can install P4Thumb on the same machine as the Helix server. However, to avoid affecting the performance of Helix server, it is recommended that you run P4Thumb on a separate machine. If P4Thumb runs on a separate machine, it requires network access to the machine where the Helix server runs. Windows 1. Download the p4thumb.zip file from: https://www.perforce.com/downloads 2. Unzip the file on the machine where you intend to run it. 3. Make sure that the vs11 and vs12 redistributables are installed on the P4Thumb machine. If they are not present, install them by running installredist.bat. 4. Create a workspace for P4Thumb that maps only the files for which you want thumbnails to be created. For example, this view maps all of the image formats that Qt supports, plus formats supported by plugins to a client named 'p4thumb' (substitute this with your client name): //depot/....ppm //p4thumb/....ppm //depot/....PPM //p4thumb/....PPM //depot/....bmp //p4thumb/....bmp //depot/....BMP //p4thumb/....BMP //depot/....jpg //p4thumb/....jpg //depot/....JPG //p4thumb/....JPG //depot/....bpm //p4thumb/....bpm //depot/....BPM //p4thumb/....BPM //depot/....gif //p4thumb/....gif //depot/....GIF //p4thumb/....GIF //depot/....pgm //p4thumb/....pgm //depot/....PGM //p4thumb/....PGM //depot/....png //p4thumb/....png //depot/....PNG //p4thumb/....PNG //depot/....mng //p4thumb/....mng //depot/....MNG //p4thumb/....MNG //depot/....xbm //p4thumb/....xbm //depot/....XBM //p4thumb/....XBM //depot/....xpm //p4thumb/....xpm //depot/....XPM //p4thumb/....XPM //depot/....max //p4thumb/....max //depot/....MAX //p4thumb/....MAX //depot/....ma //p4thumb/....ma //depot/....MA //p4thumb/....MA //depot/....mb //p4thumb/....mb //depot/....MB //p4thumb/....MB //depot/....tga //p4thumb/....tga //depot/....TGA //p4thumb/....TGA //depot/....psd //p4thumb/....psd //depot/....PSD //p4thumb/....PSD Unix 1. Download the p4thumb.tgz file from: https://www.perforce.com/downloads 2. Uncompress the file with gzip and extract the runtime files into the directory of your choice. You can create a symbolic link that points to the p4thumb executable script. For example, to create the link where the distribution files were untarred, issue the following commands: $ cd /foo $ tar xvf p4thumb.tgz $ ln -s foo/p4thumb/bin/p4thumb /usr/local/bin/p4thumb 3. Create a workspace for P4Thumb that maps only the files for which you want thumbnails to be created. For example, this view maps all of the image formats that Qt supports, plus formats supported by plugins to a client named 'p4thumb' (substitute this with your client name): //depot/....ppm //p4thumb/....ppm //depot/....PPM //p4thumb/....PPM //depot/....bmp //p4thumb/....bmp //depot/....BMP //p4thumb/....BMP //depot/....jpg //p4thumb/....jpg //depot/....JPG //p4thumb/....JPG //depot/....bpm //p4thumb/....bpm //depot/....BPM //p4thumb/....BPM //depot/....gif //p4thumb/....gif //depot/....GIF //p4thumb/....GIF //depot/....pgm //p4thumb/....pgm //depot/....PGM //p4thumb/....PGM //depot/....png //p4thumb/....png //depot/....PNG //p4thumb/....PNG //depot/....mng //p4thumb/....mng //depot/....MNG //p4thumb/....MNG //depot/....xbm //p4thumb/....xbm //depot/....XBM //p4thumb/....XBM //depot/....xpm //p4thumb/....xpm //depot/....XPM //p4thumb/....XPM //depot/....max //p4thumb/....max //depot/....MAX //p4thumb/....MAX //depot/....ma //p4thumb/....ma //depot/....MA //p4thumb/....MA //depot/....mb //p4thumb/....mb //depot/....MB //p4thumb/....MB //depot/....tga //p4thumb/....tga //depot/....TGA //p4thumb/....TGA //depot/....psd //p4thumb/....psd //depot/....PSD //p4thumb/....PSD -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug fixed in release 2020.1 #1698167 (Bug #96149) Fixed P4Thumb to correctly delete temporary files on Windows. #1746544 (Bug #97336) Added more logging for better diagnosis of problems. Also, guarded against the user entering a int value with quotes for maxWidth and maxHeight in the config.json file -------------------------------------------------------------------------- New functionality in 2017.3 1. Customer plugin To create thumbnails, you can use external tools, such as ImageMagick, XnConvert, TinyPng, Imagine, or Image Tuner, provided the generated thumbnails are in a format supported by Qt and stored as PNG files in the Helix Core server. This flavor requires that you register a 'conversion' for a set of file extensions. 2. Qt built-in file formats If P4Thumb does not find a customer-provided conversion, it only generates a thumbnail if the file extension is of a format supported by Qt. Qt supports the following formats: * bmp * cur * gif * icns * ico * jpeg * jpg * pbm * pgm * png * ppm * svg * svgz * tga * tif * tiff * wbmp * webp * xbm * xpm --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minor new functionality in 2012.2 #372184,#373711,#389650 #423427 (Bugs #2493, #9875) The Perforce client/server protocol now supports encrypted communication. SSL support has been added to perforce clients and server as well as the Perforce proxy and broker. In addition the downloadable client API can be compiled with OpenSSL if encrypted connections are required. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bugs fixed in release 2010.2 #303341 (Bug #28625) Fixed another problem reading Windows registry keys. The Maya plugin did not always choose the newest version, rather it selected the most recent registry key installed. Now compares installed versions to use the newest release. #302839 (Bug #28625) Updated Maya plugin to support Windows versions since Autodesk. The Windows registry keys changed after version 7, and the plugin was not able to locate render.exe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bugs fixed in release 2009.1 #203878 (Bug #32170) p4thumb now correctly directs output to the console. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bugs fixed in release 2008.1 #158823 (Bug #30014) Low disk-space on Windows is now reported correctly. Locking the log file no longer crashes on Windows using Qt4. #158381 (Bug #29971) p4thumb now correctly processes image files and logging capability. p4thumb no longer crashes when running against an empty depot.