SVG Viewer Extension for Windows Explorer

Extension module for Windows Explorer to render SVG thumbnails, so that you can have an overview of your SVG files.

Installation

From Releases download and run appropriate binary for your system. There are no further actions required after installations.

Make sure you download the right architecture (the 32 bit installer will run on a 64 bit system, but the extension will not function).

Troubleshooting

Thumbnails do no show after installation

Method 1:

This may happen if the thumbnail's are disabled in the system. To verify that it is indeed turned on:

Open the start menu
Search for File Explorer Options and open it
Under the View tab make sure that the Always show icons, never thumbnails is unchecked

Method 2:

This may happen if the system already contains cached thumbnails for the SVGs you are trying to view. This can be fixed by clearing the system's thumbnail cache.

Open the start menu
Search for "Disk cleanup" and open it
In the dialog there is a list of items that can be cleaned. Select Thumbnails at the end of the list. You may unselect the rest or leave the default selection.
Click OK

Method 3:

Kill explorer.exe and delete the icon cache manually (ref):

TASKKILL /IM explorer* /F
DEL "%localappdata%\IconCache.db" /A
explorer.exe

If neither of the above helped please open an issue on our github page.

An error is thrown during the installation.

Please open an issue on our github page, and include a screen shot and the exact error message.

Automatic builds

Development install exe's are created from every commit through the continual-integration system.

From https://ci.appveyor.com/project/tibold/svg-explorer-extension/history
Select a recent build showing green, then click Artifacts.

Being dev releases, they might not work. Current status:

Developer Build Environment c.2019

Warning: it's about 10 GB.

QtCreator
Qt SDK - MSVC 2017 64-bit using Qt Maintenance Tool installed with QtCreator. Might be problems if install MSVC 32 bit at same time. (Qt Creator & SDK: 7.2 GB)
MS Visual Studio - build tools only else many more GB. Reboots necessary, read the notes (2.5 GB)
Windows SDK
Inno Setup v6

Chocolatey installation:

choco install qtcreator, windows-sdk-10.-0, innosetup
choco install visualstudio2017buildtools
choco install visualstudio2017-workload-vctools ^
  --params "--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre"

Quick start after developer env is set:

git clone https://github.com/tibold/svg-explorer-extension.git
cd svg-explorer-extension\deployment
.\build.cmd

History

Tibold Kandrai started the project in 2012, first on Google Code, Codeplex. Life happened and Tibold didn't have time to work on it any more, though the extension continued to work more than it didn't so people kept using it.

In 2017 Codeplex shut down and turned into a read-only warehouse. Matt Wilkie imported the project to GitHub and continued to maintain the project as best as a python-not-c++ guy could. The extension continued to work more than not, though the problems started to add up as Windows continued to evolve and change underfoot.

In late 2019 a lucky confluence of stubborn brute force learning on Matt's part and newly active and knowledgeable contributors (Daniel, Simon, Voodoo) revived the feared soon-to-be-comatose project. Bugs were fixed and automatic binary builds came into being. Life rebounded. Right on the heels of this, Tibold regained attention time for side-projects and again assumed the project owner mantle.

On 1st of January, 2020 version v1.0.0 was released including all bug fixes and up to date dependencies. Let's see where the rest of the year takes us. :-)