Can you change the icon of a single saved search & show the contents of it in the details pane?

[The_Decimator]

As in, I want to change icons for saved searches individually, and not have one icon for every saved search, and I want to be shown the files within the saved search before I open it.

 

Thanks,

MASTER260

[Ian W]

Good question. I believe the answer is "No" since the saved search files are not shortcuts in the traditional sense (they are not .lnk files, and there is no Shortcut tab in the Properties dialog box). In order to change the icon, you would have to use a resource editor to edit the file where the saved search icon itself is stored, but that would affect all icons instead of affecting only one individually (i.e., not what you are looking for).

You can, however, create a shortcut to the saved search and then customize the icon of the shortcut, and then populate your saved search folder with these shortcuts. In this example, I have created a shortcut to the saved search for .jpg files from archive.org, and have customized the icon so that it looks like Windows Update.

Note that I have not done anything to the original saved search file, archive.org .jpg, which is located to the right of the newly created shortcut. For a more authentic experience, I would hide the original file and use a program (or edit the registry) to remove shortcut arrows.



As for your question about the Details Pane, I don't think that you will get it to preview the contents of a folder, whether it be a typical folder in Windows Explorer or a saved search . . . It does allow one to preview how many files are in a folder, but it does not provide a preview of the content within a folder itself. It is primarily designed to allow the user to quickly edit the information of a given file (name, date and time, metadata, etc).

[The_Decimator]

Good question. I believe the answer is "No" since the saved search files are not shortcuts in the traditional sense (they are not .lnk files, and there is no Shortcut tab in the Properties dialog box). In order to change the icon, you would have to use a resource editor to edit the file where the saved search icon itself is stored, but that would affect all icons instead of affecting only one individually (i.e., not what you are looking for).

You can, however, create a shortcut to the saved search and then customize the icon of the shortcut, and then populate your saved search folder with these shortcuts. In this example, I have created a shortcut to the saved search for .jpg files from archive.org, and have customized the icon so that it looks like Windows Update.

Note that I have not done anything to the original saved search file, archive.org .jpg, which is located to the right of the newly created shortcut. For a more authentic experience, I would hide the original file and use a program (or edit the registry) to remove shortcut arrows.

As for your question about the Details Pane, I don't think that you will get it to preview the contents of a folder, whether it be a typical folder in Windows Explorer or a saved search . . . It does allow one to preview how many files are in a folder, but it does not provide a preview of the content within a folder itself. It is primarily designed to allow the user to quickly edit the information of a given file (name, date and time, metadata, etc).

Well, thanks anyways.  At least now I know the limits of what I can do.

[The_Decimator]

Hey, so, sorry I'm bumping an old thread, but, I just have to say:  I wish Windows Explorer would recognize all those saved searches as albums.  I just feel like if it could do things like show the track list or gather info about the album from places like, say, Wikipedia, it would make things so much simpler on my tablet.  Also, what if Microsoft redid Windows Explorer as a Metro app and put all of the functionality of the Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps in the Music and Videos libraries, and essentially have the latter replace the former?  I know there are plenty of file managers already that have media players built in, but maybe if Microsoft could take it a step further that would be sweet. Like, if they could have things like cloud matching right in the Music Library, for instance, that would be great.  Also maybe look here for a little inspiration:

 

I dunno.  I doubt any of this would happen, and maybe I'm stupid for thinking all this, I'm just starting to have this nagging feeling that things could be so much greater than they are now.

EDIT: For those who don't get it, I'm referring to the saved searches I had in the image I previously posted and Ian W quoted, in which all of my search criteria was album:"Album Name". So, it would only show me audio files that had that album name in its metadata.

[Barney T. Administrators]

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