[Needs Feedback] Preview Pane - What should be on-by-default (Monaco preview)

[Aaron-Junker]

Community question:

So if we would implement a preview functionality in windows explorer for developer files(#1527), what of the following options would be the best for you?

1. The user can choose in the installer for which file extensions it should get activated.
2. All 126 file extensions get activated
3. Only file extensions get activated that you had on your computer before
4. Only common file extensions get activated

Please note, that after the installation of PT you can still deactivate/activate certain file types. It's just the default settings we talking about.

Also let other feedback here for this feature if you want.

Thank you for your thoughts on this.

[Aaron-Junker]

@crutkas Could we pin this?

[crutkas]

why not just activate all 126 by default and allow people to opt-out, these are all dev-ish focused files and limited to only preview pane

[htcfreek]

We could add a general button to opt-out of all exts in one step and a listview where the user can opt-out each ext itself. Then we should be fine.

[x] Enable preview of dev files
    [x] enable ext1
    [ ] enable ext2
    [x] enable ext3
    ...

[Aaron-Junker]

why not just activate all 126 by default and allow people to opt-out, these are all dev-ish focused files and limited to only preview pane

But imagine you have a new coputer whee none of this 128 file extensions are registred. That means we must add 356 new registry keys (you need 2 for a file extension) and their subkeys. This are many keys.

[richsidney]

I think there are certain file types that make sense to preview, such as .log, .config, etc. There are others that don't help at all.

I suggest the following:

1. Allow the user to choose during installation whether to enable any that aren't already enabled.
2. If the user chooses yes, then display a list of common extensions, and preselect "reasonable" ones to enable.
3. Provide a simple settings page that allows these to set/reset.

Note that the default extension selector used by windows when it asks is useless, because the extensions are displayed without any filtering or additional descriptions as to the extension's purpose, so don't do that.

[crutkas]

During install won’t be a near term item.

[htcfreek]

During install won’t be a near term item.

But then we possibly override the existing settings and handlers. Then we shouldn't enable one of them by default.

[Jay-o-Way]

Personal thought

1. Is too soon
2. Sounds easy from user pov, but less simple from dev pov. as Aaron mentioned.
3. Sounds like a smart balance 👍🏻
4. Sounds good too, but how do we define "common" and where is the threshold?

Asides from these points: can/will they be grouped by category? Then we could even give every group (of check boxes) a "master" check box.
If it turns out that the best time for the first choice would be at install time, then we could use these categories to make an initial selection. Could use some of the logic from point 3 and/or 4 to have the most "useful" checked at first. Something like

• Category A (30)
• Category B (25)
• ...
• Category X (3)

[byamagata]

I dont mind having all extensions activated for it.
I like the idea of common ones being activated (eg: .cs, .json, .log, .config)
I also dont mind going through a long list and activating which ones I would want, as long as that list is searchable to some extent. Looking forward to this!

[crutkas]

FYI thing to remember here also is we're only doing preview pane. Default app launching will be retained

[crutkas]

Closing. Think it is all on by default, allow setting pane to turn off