Feature Proposal/Request: add a Side Preview Panel for files in Nemo

[BlabberBlabbing]

Feature Proposal: Add a Side Preview Panel for Files in Nemo

Summary

Introduce an optional side panel in Nemo that displays an interactive preview of selected files (images, documents, media, etc.), similar to the Windows Explorer preview pane. This feature aims to provide on-the-fly content previews without opening external applications.

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Details

🎯 Key Functionalities

• Display a resizable side panel for file previews.
• Support common file types:
  • Images (.jpg, .png, .gif, .svg)
  • Documents (.pdf, .odt, .docx, .txt, .md)
  • Media (.mp3, .mp4, .mkv, .ogg, .flac)
  • Code files (source code with syntax highlighting)

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🧩 Preview Capabilities

• Scrollable pages for multi-page documents (e.g., PDFs, ODTs).
• Media playback controls (seek, pause, play for audio/video).
• Hover or select to trigger previews (similar to Dolphin hover preview).

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🔄 Integration with the Existing Extra Pane

Currently, Nemo includes an extra pane (opened via F3 or menu) that displays a second file explorer view.
This proposal suggests an alternative or configurable behavior:

• Allow the extra pane to act as a preview pane instead of a second file browser.
• Users could toggle the extra pane between:
  • A second file browser (current behavior), or
  • A dedicated preview pane for selected files.

This approach would reuse existing UI space without introducing new panels.

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🏗️ Implementation Notes

• Leverage existing libraries where possible:
  • Poppler for PDFs
  • LibreOffice components for ODT/DOCX
  • GStreamer or ffmpegthumbnailer for media previews
  • GTK widgets for rendering previews inside the pane

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⚙️ Optional Settings

• Enable/disable preview pane globally.
• Enable/disable per file type (e.g., disable media previews if not needed).
• Control resource usage (e.g., limit media length or document page count in preview).

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✅ Benefits

• Improves file management efficiency, especially when browsing large collections of mixed files.
• Helps users avoid opening external applications unnecessarily.
• Brings feature parity with Windows Explorer and Dolphin.
• Builds on existing Nemo features (extra pane) for a more powerful user experience.

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Next Steps

• Discuss feasibility and gather feedback from the community.
• Identify dependencies (e.g., Poppler, GStreamer) and check for acceptable footprint in Linux Mint.
• Prototype a minimal implementation (e.g., PDF + image preview) and expand support iteratively.

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I am open to contributing ideas, testing, and collaborating with interested developers!

[Jopp-gh]

I posted a similar request:

https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/36#discussioncomment-13014085

[BlabberBlabbing]

I think you linked the wrong thread

Actually you POSTED your proposal in the wrong thread. You should have opened a new proposal. Now I know I'm not the only one wanting this, but unless you have a better plan (like we all join some more "solid" group that is already working towards such a proposal), I suggest you join my proposal possibly adding your observations/prototypes/work.

[Jopp-gh]

"Wrong" is the wrong word to describe, what I do: which is, to show my design to a broader audience, so I'm posting and reposting to get into a discussion instead to put myself on display.
As you said yourself, only a group of interested people is able move things.

Nemo is integral part of Mint.

I'm still active in app development myself and love to share, show my ideas, mockups to wherever public and thread I want and don't need antibody's approval to do so.

[cplittlfield]

I think this would be a valuable addition. It would be an automatic version of selecting a file and pressing the spacebar.

I began to understand the need for such a feature while corresponding on the forums with a French horse breeder, who had a large collection of photos of her stock and their lineages, and who had a pressing need for a feature like this. It would have greatly streamlined her searches for needed photos.

[BlabberBlabbing]

Ty for the comment.
Indeed. For photos or anything from basic text, to pdfs, to office formats (spreadsheets or presentations).
Windows and Dolphin (partially: you can't navigate documents)) have it.

[bmmini1]

Windows Explorer has another feature, that I used often in the past (before switching to Linux Mint).
This is editing the MP3 tags of MP3 audio files.
I know, there are a lot of tools, that probably do this job much better, but adding/changing the most common MP3 tags is a really nice feature, that I'm missing.

[BlabberBlabbing]

This is about a feature complex enough (preview panel): audio files metadata editing isn't unfortunately part of the goals of this proposal.
Actually windows allows the editing of audio metadata via the file "properties" box which in Mint has indeed less default capabilities (in particular it can't edit metadata): you should join a work group that wants to improve that.

[Krezzin]

Not having the side panel containing media info, be it audio or video file, until now is... to say the very least, crazy. It's a weird ass world we're living in... :D