The Preview Feature

The Preview Feature - Overview

CS Browser supports the Preview feature, allowing you to preview certain file types directly from the CS Browser interface.

Currently, the following four file formats are supported:

• Images (image viewer with zoom and panning)
• Plain text files (text viewer)
• Table files (table viewer)
• Binary files (hex viewer)

CS Browser uses its own file-type detection algorithm, which doesn't rely on file extensions or MIME types.

How to Preview Files

1. Select the file you want to preview.

2. Open the Preview tab.

Image Viewer

The image viewer initially fits large images into the available preview area while preserving their aspect ratio. Smaller images are shown at their original size.

Right-click the image to choose a viewing mode:

• Fit Image - Fit the image into the preview area and adjust it when the panel is resized.
• Original Size (100%) - View the image at its original size.
• Zoom In and Zoom Out - Increase or decrease the zoom level.

Hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel over the image to zoom around the pointer. You can also click the image and press + or - to zoom. When the image is larger than the preview area, drag it with the left mouse button to pan, or use the scrollbars.

The current zoom level appears briefly after a change. The context menu also shows the zoom level and original image dimensions, and lets you copy the image URL, width and height, or HTML code.

Text Viewer

The text viewer applies automatic formatting for XML and JSON files, making it easier to read structured data. Standard plain text files can also be previewed in this viewer. You can copy the text content using the context menu.

Table Viewer

The Table Viewer provides a user-friendly interface for previewing CSV and Parquet files, with features focused on ease of navigation and data exploration.

The following pagination controls are located in the bottom toolbar, allowing you to navigate through large datasets:

• First: Takes you to the beginning of the dataset.
• Prev: Moves to the previous page.
• Next: Advances to the next page.
• Last: Jumps to the end of the dataset.

A dropdown menu labeled "Show" allows you to select the number of rows to display per page, helping manage visibility and performance with larger files.

The summary text label provides helpful statistics, including:

• Row Range: Displays the range of rows currently visible (e.g., "Showing 1,001 to 2,000 of 150,000 rows").
• Selection Count: Shows the number of selected rows.
• Average and Sum: Provides the average and total of numeric values in the selected column, allowing for quick calculations without external tools.

Hex Viewer

The hex viewer allows you to inspect the raw binary content of files in hexadecimal format. This can be especially useful for analyzing non-text files such as executables, video files, or any other binary data.

Preview Settings

To show a file preview, the file must be fully downloaded to your local machine, and it is also loaded entirely into memory. This can impact performance for large files.

You can control the maximum file size for previewed files in CS Browser.

Set this limit by navigating to Tools, Options, Interface and adjusting the Limit the max file size for Preview (MB) setting.

This setting allows you to specify a maximum file size in megabytes, helping to manage performance by preventing excessively large files from loading in the preview feature.