Ok. Enough about how folders appear. We need to see what options are availble. Figure 7
shows window that would open if you click on Tools/Folder 2 Gallery Options in the menus. The General section has five tabs. General is shown. There are two options outside the tabs. The first controls whether F2G does anything at all. With that option turned off, F2G will never
appear or change how Firefox displays local folders. It would be as though Folder 2 Gallery was not installed. The other option prevents F2G from handling display of folders any differently from how the options below are set. Normally, those are only defaults—not the actual settings. The default options normally take effect only
when there is no settings file (Folder 2 Gallery.xml) in the folder. Please note that telling F2G to ignore those files does not
delete any files.
Next, examine the General tab inside the Default group. The first option allows or prevents F2G from creating the local settings files. If you choose not to create those files, F2G will always use the global settings if the local file (Folder 2 Gallery.xml) is missing. Again, F2G won't delete any files just because you change this setting. If you check this, you might want to check the option at the top of the dialog to ignore any existing local settings files. The two options are completely independant.
Below that is the option to place a border around entire items and another to put a border around preview images. Now be careful with the next item. It will cause F2G to ignore all instances of Folder 2 Gallery.xml in subfolders of the current folder. This causes the style of the current folder to also be used for the child folders. This option can not be overriden in the subfolder. If you turn it on, the only way to get rid of it is at the parent folder where you turned it on. The button to show the folder options window will not be shown in the child folders. (However, you can still set options for files.)
Moving on, we run into an option on how F2G handles graphics that are smaller than the thumbnail size you selected. Turning this on will cause F2G to strech images to fit if they are smaller than the preview size. Another option is how SVG and SVGZ files are previewed. You have the choice of simply displaying the SVG using the <object> tag or generating a PNG (or JPG) of the SVG. In the later case, the PNG or JPG will be used as the preview and stored depending on the options you select in the correct tab.
The final option in the General tab actually doesn't belong there or anywhere inside the Defaults group. It was added there due to the lack of space elsewhere. It lets you control how much space F2G can use for thumbnails in the Firefox profile folder. This option has no effect on thumbnails stored in the same folder as the source image. (Please expect the first option in the General tab to move as well. It was placed where it is shown in the mockups by mistake. It has no relevance in the context shown. It is either that or it would only apply to subfolders aside from the default part.)
Time for the next tab: Folder Previews. For that, look at Figure 8. This tab has just two options. You can tell F2G to use the first image found in a folder or any subfolder as the folder's preview. Or, F2G can generate a 3d folder image with thumbnails inside it for a Vista look. (This might not happen.)
Moving on, look at Figure 9. Here, you choose the layout for each item. As noted, you can hide the file type icon and/or the file name extension. F2G will show you what you selected on that tab.
Figure 10
shows the options you have with select file types that Firefox can't handle on its own. In each case, you can tell F2G to use the type's plugin (if known) to generate the thumbnail. You also have the option to simply show a large file type icon instead of a preview image. Compressed file types like ZIP, RAR, and 7z have their own options. F2G can either treat them as a folder (and let you browse them) or simply show the file type's icon as the preview. To avoid making changes to compressed file types, F2G will never store settings (unless you make changes) or thumbnails in the compressed file. All thumbnails will be stored in the Firefox profile.
The final tab, shown in Figure 11
inside the Defaults group in the Global section controls some of the details of thumbnail creation. First, you can change the size of the thumbs here. If you pick 100 pixels, then all thumbs must fit within a 100x100 box (not counting the file type icon or the file name). Next, you have three options as to how F2G can cache the thumbnails it makes. You can tell F2G not to bother. This is the default for folders that are really some type of compressed file. Another option would be to store the generated thumbnails in the Firefox Profile. Finally, you can choose to store the thumbnails as hidden files in the same folder as the source image. Note: If a image file exists in that folder with one of the filenames "tn_file.png", "tn_file.apng", "tn_file.jpg", "tn_file.jpeg", "file_tn.png", "file_tn.apng", "file_tn.jpg", or "file_tn.jpeg"; F2G will use that file as the thumb, resizing it as needed. (That doesn't apply to folders.) As such F2G might never check the Firefox profile cache even if you want thumbnails stored there or you don't want thumbnails stored at all.
If you choose to store the thumbnails in each folder with the source images, F2G will always have the correct thumbnail as long as the image doesn't change (which would trigger generation of a new thumbnail). However, if you later uninstall F2G or Firefox, all the thumbnail files will still exist on your hard drive. (There is a button in the Tools section of the Options dialog to delete those files.) Now if you store thumbnails in the Firefox Profile, you don't have to worry about that. However, F2G might have thumbnails cached for folders that you moved or deleted. Of course you could turn caching off, but unless F2G finds a thumbnail as described above (created by you), it will constant have to recreate thumbs, slowing you down.
The final set of otions in the Thumbnail tab control the file type used when Firefox doesn't support the file type of the source file without help. (Note: This might also apply to SVG and SVGZ files depending on the options in the General tab.) This setting has no effect on any file that Firefox knows how to display. Anytime F2G makes a thumbnail for those files, it will use the same type as the source image. This means you don't have to worry about JPGs being thumbnailed as PNG or a PNG as a highly compressed JPG. You can choose between PNG, APNG, MNG, and JPG. Choosing APNG or MNG will cause F2G to use PNG if animation isn't needed. (Animated thumbnails may or may not happen.) The links would take the user to the Wikipedia page for that file type. Hence, a user who doesn't know what APNG is can look it up. Also, this option has an effect even if you choose not to cache thumbnails.
Finally, the right half of this tab is devoted to a sample image with the options you choose. The outer box shows the maximum allowed size (256x256). The image may change depending on the thumbnail type you choose (PNG or JPG). However, this image will always be stock image; never an actual image from your drive.
The next section, see Figure 12, provides a way to change how Folder 2 Gallery displays each page. F2G exposes most elements on the page as CSS classes and ID values. Each theme is a CSS file. Simply select a theme and F2G will always use it. Use the install button to install a new theme that you downloaded. A link or button to download new themes might be added to the actual extension.
Figure 13
shows the final section in the Options dialog: Tools. Currently, there are just two things in here. One option searches your hard drive for instances of Folder 2 Gallery.xml and deletes them. The other searches for and deletes any cached thumbnails—even if you created them manually. Depending on the options you chose elsewhere in the Options dialog, you might want to use one or both of these tools before you uinstall F2G or Firefox. Either tool could take some time. Please be patient while waiting on them.