Rust Hover Preview

Windows 11 system tray application that shows image and video previews when hovering over files in Windows Explorer. Inspired by QTTabBar (QuizoApps) hover preview.

Features

• Image preview on hover for common formats (JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, ICO, TIFF/TIF, WebP)
• Animated GIF and animated WebP playback
• Video preview on hover (MP4, WebM, MKV, AVI, MOV, WMV, FLV, M4V) using FFmpeg tools
• System tray controls for enabling/disabling previews, startup, video volume, preview position, and preview delay
• Configurable hover delay

System Tray Menu

Right-click the system tray icon to access:

• Enable Preview: Toggle all previews on/off
• Preview Delay: Instant (0 ms), Fast (200 ms), Medium (500 ms), Slow (1000 ms)
• Video Volume: Set preview volume from 0–100%
• Preview Position: Follow Cursor or Best Position
• Run at Startup: Toggle automatic startup with Windows
• Edit Config.ini: Open config.ini in the default text editor
• Exit: Close the application

Requirements

• Windows 11
• Rust toolchain (1.70+)
• Windows 11 SDK
• Visual Studio Build Tools (for Windows linking)
• Optional: FFmpeg in PATH (for video previews)
  • Required tools: ffplay and ffprobe

Building

# Debug build
cargo build

# Release build (optimized)
cargo build --release

Custom Icon

To add a custom application icon:

1. Place your .ico file at assets/icon.ico
2. Rebuild the application

Installation

1. Build the release version: cargo build --release
2. Copy target/release/rust-hover-preview.exe to your preferred location
3. Run the application
4. (Optional) Enable "Run at Startup" from the system tray menu

Configuration

Settings are stored in:

%APPDATA%\rust-hover-preview\config.ini

Example configuration:

[settings]
run_at_startup=false
hover_delay_ms=0
preview_enabled=true
follow_cursor=false
video_volume=0

How It Works

The application uses several Windows APIs:

• UI Accessibility (MSAA) to detect the hovered item in Explorer
• Shell Windows API to resolve active Explorer windows and folders
• GDI for rendering image previews without stealing focus
• Registry API for managing startup entries
• FFmpeg (ffplay/ffprobe) for video preview playback and sizing

Notes

• If FFmpeg is not installed or not in PATH, video previews are skipped.
• The preview window is layered, topmost, and does not steal focus.
• No telemetry is collected.

License

MIT License - See LICENSE for details