Thumbnail

Automatic thumbnails and source priority

• Use first-post image attachments, [IMG] images and thumbnails from supported YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion embeds.
• Use posters rendered by your configured custom BBCode tags.
• Optionally resolve TMDB or IMDb IDs through TMDB using your own API read token. Movie and TV references are supported.
• Reorder nine source groups: posters, attachments, external images, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, generated cards, author avatars and the default image.
• Drag sources, use the Up and Down buttons or move a focused row with Alt+Up/Down. Unavailable or disabled sources are skipped.
• Refresh existing automatic selections gradually after changing the order. A pending higher-ranked source temporarily falls through to an available alternative.

Generated thread cards — new in 1.1.0

• Generate cards for eligible public threads without images, or rank cards above real images.
• Choose Classic, Editorial or Bold and set background, text and accent colors.
• Select thread title, author name, publication date/time, forum name, board name and custom text.
• Add an optional raster logo and author avatar, with initials when an avatar is unavailable.
• Use bundled Noto Sans fonts with Latin-script support, including Vietnamese, or upload a custom TrueType font.
• Preview unsaved settings in both sizes: a 1200 × 630 sharing image and a 600 × 600 compact image.
• Use measured text wrapping and ellipsis truncation for longer titles. Compact cards omit date/time and custom text.
• Include {title}, {author}, {date}, {time}, {forum} and {board} in your custom text.

Manual selection and forum controls

• Choose which forums display thumbnails, or select All.
• Grant separate user-group permissions to edit a member’s own thumbnail or any thread thumbnail.
• Choose a detected image, upload a custom image, return to Auto detect or keep No thumbnail.
• Protect manual selections and legacy real-image choices from the new automatic refresh and card tools.
• Set thread-list and widget dimensions, border radius and supported search-result display.
• Optionally store optimized local copies of selected external and video images.

Forum display, sharing and maintenance

• Show thumbnails in supported thread lists, latest-thread/post widgets and thread/post search results.
• Use the wide generated image for thread sharing metadata and Twitter summary_large_image when a generated card is active.
• Generate cards through a scheduled task every five minutes, with a configurable batch of 1–100 threads; 20 is the default.
• Queue updates after relevant thread, author, forum, permission and configuration changes.
• Open Generated thumbnail tools to refresh automatic selections, fill missing cards, rebuild cards or retry failures, with optional forum filtering.
• Reuse unchanged output and create new filenames for refreshed cards. Ordinary thumbnail getters do not render images or download assets.

1. Install or upgrade Thumbnail

Back up your forum files and database, then test the update with your forum style. In the Admin CP, open Add-ons → Install/upgrade from archive and select DC-Thumbnail-1.1.0.zip. If installing manually, copy the archive’s upload contents into the XenForo root, then install or upgrade DC/Thumbnail from the Add-ons page.

This is an update to Thumbnail, not a separate add-on. When replacing files manually, complete the add-on upgrade so the database and imported templates match the new files.

2. Choose forums and member permissions

Open Setup → Options → D.C Style - Thumbnail. Select the forums that should display thumbnails, or choose All. A fresh installation does not select all forums automatically.

In your user-group permissions, grant Can edit own thread thumbnail and, for appropriate staff, Can edit any thread thumbnail. Administrators retain their normal access. Choose list/widget dimensions and whether thumbnails should appear in supported search results.

3. Set your source priority

Move sources in Thumbnail selection priority. The highest enabled, eligible, available source is used for automatic selection. For example, move Image attachment above Poster BB code to prefer uploaded post images, or move Generated card first for a consistent card design.

External images, video images, configured poster tags, avatar types and generated cards retain their own enablement settings. Saving a new order schedules a gradual refresh of automatic selections; it does not reset manual choices.

4. Add poster sources — optional

Enter the IDs of existing custom tags in Poster BBCode tags. A configured tag that renders an image can supply a poster directly. The add-on uses your forum’s existing BBCode definitions; it does not install a movie database BBCode by itself.

For tags containing a TMDB or IMDb ID without a rendered image, enter your own TMDB API read token to enable background poster lookup. TMDB IDs default to movies; [TMDB=tv]123[/TMDB] denotes a TV reference when that tag is configured. IMDb IDs are resolved through TMDB. No token is needed for generated text cards or ordinary post images. Follow TMDB’s attribution and usage terms when using its API.

5. Enable and design generated cards — optional

Generated cards start disabled on installation and upgrade. Enable Enable generated thumbnail cards, choose a preset and select the fields you want to display. Set colors, upload a raster logo if desired, and keep or disable the author-avatar slot.

Use the bundled font or upload a .ttf file up to 2 MiB. Custom text is plain text with supported replacement tokens; it does not execute HTML or template code. Date/time formats use PHP date-format letters and display in the board’s default language and guest timezone.

Select Preview unsaved design before saving. The sharing image is 1200 × 630; the compact forum image is 600 × 600 and omits date/time and custom text. At very small dimensions, such as the default 36 × 36 list slot, the card provides identity rather than a readable full title.

6. Run background jobs reliably

The add-on schedules work every five minutes. For reliable processing on quiet forums, ask your host to run XenForo jobs every minute from the forum directory. A typical command is:

php cmd.php xf:run-jobs --max-execution-time=50

Enabling generation starts gradual backfill of eligible threads. Rendering requires PHP GD with FreeType. Only visible, non-redirect threads that guests can read in enabled forums receive generated cards.

7. Review and maintain thumbnails

Use the thread thumbnail editor to choose an image, upload a custom thumbnail or return to Auto detect. Open Generated thumbnail tools from the options page to refresh selections, fill missing cards, rebuild generated cards or retry failures after fixing their cause.

Failed generation retries after 5 minutes, 30 minutes and 2 hours before remaining in the failure list. Superseded card files are retained for one day and then cleaned up. Previously cached social/CDN copies can remain after an image changes or is removed.

The new card tools preserve manual and legacy real-image selections. The older thumbnail rebuild tool’s explicit replacement/reset option remains separate. Uninstall removes owned generated images, protected font/avatar cache and database records through resumable steps; restore storage access if cleanup needs a retry.