Installation

This section provides information on supported platforms, disk space, performance, and the individual installation steps.

Supported platforms

• Windows 7, 8.1, 10 (x86, x86_64)

• Linux (x86_64)

  • RHEL 6.6+
  • CentOS 6.6+
  • Ubuntu 16.04+

P4Thumb 2017.3 works with Helix Core version 2016.1 or later.

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 journaling run more slowly as a result, and the resulting files are larger.

Running P4Thumb does not noticeably slow down Helix server, but the retrieval and display of thumbnails does have some effect on P4V performance.

Installation steps

You can install P4Thumb on the same machine as 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/helix-thumbnail-generator-p4thumb

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

Linux

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

4. Create the configuration file for startup of P4Thumb.

   A configuration file is located under: ./doc/thumbconfig.json

   For the default QT configuration, only the setting section is required, as follows:

   {
    "settings": {
            "connection": {
                     "client": “<workspace name>“,
                     "port": “<server:port>“,
                     "user": “<thumbnail user>”
            },
            "logFile": “<path to log file>”,
            "nativeSize": {
                     "height": <number of pixels default=160>,
                     "width": <number of pixels default=160>
            },
            "pollInterval": <number of seconds default=30>,
            "maxFileSize" : <size in bytes default no-limit>
    }
   }

   For details, see Configuration.

5. Start P4Thumb using the configuration file, as follows:

   p4thumb  -c <config files>