Making the move from Windows to Linux, and loving CachyOS with the KDE interface.
Installed Wine 11 so I can run a few favourite Windows apps, like Paint Shop Pro, Dreamweaver, etc. All install and run fine, but, when I go to open a file within these apps, the File Open dialog popup has no thumbnail option for images, just file names.
For a graphics app, or adding a image to a page in Dreamweaver, this is a real problem. I need thumbnails to see what file I’m looking for.
I’ve looked at the options in Wine, but cant see anything to enable thumbnails.
Is this just how Wine11 works, or is there a way to get thumbnails working for Windows apps.
Thanks
Glenn
This isn’t a trivial thing - and really it’s a poor idea to run Linux with the plan to run windows apps - a virtual machine was the way I managed it when I opted to use iTunes for a year after installing Linux.
WINE isn’t an emulator.
Based on my understanding I’m afraid this isn’t possible. That’s a feature someone would need to implement in Wine. File dialogs for Windows software are kinda a basic reimplementation of what Windows does, which is sadly not simply a separate .exe process that could be swapped out for something fancier.
I don’t use Paint Shop Pro nor Dreamweaver but I do use Photoshop. What I do is open the native Linux file explorer and drag-and-drop what I’m looking for.
In cases that’s not possible for whatever reason it still helps to have the native file explorer open to see which file name you’re looking for.
Another thing you can do is right click on your file in Dolphin for example, select “Copy Location”, then in your Konsole enter winepath -w "/home/YOU/Pictures/randomfile.jpg" The file name is obviously just an example. That will output the location on the Z drive that Wine apps typically see, like Z:\home\YOU\Pictures\randomfile.jpg which you can then paste into the file dialog. Cumbersome, but depending on the situation maybe that’s worth doing.
CacheMeIfYouCan So if you depend on Windows apps, give Linux a miss then?
Thornskade Yeah I was affraid this was the case. I need a few Windows only apps for my business and was trying to stay away from Win11. Cachy seamed the best option, but this no thumbnails is a real pain in the way I work. I’ll see what happens under Winboat, it may work OK, but I found Winboat itself a bit clunky.
It’s all relative. I don’t use Photoshop in business-related contexts so for me there’s no point booting up Windows, and thumbnails are no big deal to me since I have the native file explorer open. The main issue is probably not getting access to official support if anything doesn’t work. Business and no support generally isn’t a good combination I’d say, and unfortunately business often makes you dependent on proprietary crap like Windows or MacOS… if they go in a direction you don’t like but you depend on your business then I’m honestly not sure what the realistic options are.
Winboat however is likely a safe bet, it is just a virtual Windows machine after all. However, I believe it has no GPU passthrough, i.e. graphics processing runs in software mode. Not sure what difference that makes in programs like Paint Shop Pro and Dreamweaver, whether there are some tasks that become much slower than native.
Just an idea: ask yourself if you really depend on PSP. For many graphical tasks, Gimp should work just fine and maybe also take a look at Inkscape.
I wasn’t aware that Dreamweaver is still a thing. Last time I used it is some 25 years ago and I actually hated it. I’m one of those guys who write HTML in an editor like Kate or VSCodium 
I don’t know if there is a WYSIWYG webpage editor like Dreamweaver in Linux, but my first goto website to check if there might be a Linux-native alternative to any program I used on windows is always alternativeto.net. Go check it out.
I admit it may be a struggle at first learning to use new tools, but the struggle is well worth it (and necessary) if you really want to get away from Windows.
I found that most of my ‘depends’ were more like bad habits…
However, I would likely run a VM if I needed to run software from some other operating system that isn’t trivial just to launch and run in Linux.
Now with regards to the file dialog, you’re picking on a difficult area, and it’s likely trivial to keep dolphin open, then simply drag and drop whatever file you want to open.
But for sure, you have to make decisions - I finally quite my iOS habit and picked up an Android phone to make life sweeter - and what few workflows I had that relied on Windows (at that time iTunes, and a preference for importing/editing/tuning photos with ACDSee) evaporated after a few months working with alternatives.
It’s a tough call to say ‘I won’t run Windows, but I WILL run Windows Software’ because it will always depend on having a lot of Windows bloat on the system… but if it was important, I’d use a VM.
An update. I did try Winboat. It does open a standard Windows file dialog, and this did present icons for the files, but not thumbnails. So I would see a generic image icon, but not the thumbnail of the image. I believe this may have something to do with windows unable to create the thumbnails file. I would persever but I’ve found Winboat to be a little glitchy sometimes, slow to get going, and had a couple lock ups.
Yes I could live without PSP, but not Dreamweaver ( and the cad software I’m yet to install ). I need to stick with Dreamweaver as its code/design/split view options are brilliant for the work I do. I develop a intranet workshop management system, php/MySQL based, and I have 30 workshops using it. Its been in development for for over 18 years, and from day one I used Dreamweaver. There’s over 1500 pages now and those are typically 2000 to 4000 lines of mixed html, php and javascript. I’ve looked at other WYSIWYG editors and the only one’s that come close to Dreamweaver are expensive, and I’ve already bought Dreamweaver.
So back to Windows for now, but watching the Linux developments closely.
In reality, there are lots of people in a similar situation to me, using Windows only programs to do their daily job, and not wanting to move to Windows 11. In our world, the application is king, not the OS it runs on. If the OS cant run the app, then it’s not up to the job, unfortunately.