Thanks to everyone who sent me info both on and off list about programs to view my embroidery files. There are several out there that look great, but I think I have found just what I needed for now - cheap and easy, LOL.
I was actually investigating SewCat, and found SewIconz. I've downloaded a trial (7 day) version, and have not had time to be sure there are no obvious drawbacks or bugs, but so far, it's great.
All I really wanted was to be able to see my designs as thumbnails so I could copy, move, rename, etc. easily. I use Windows Explorer to do all that with my graphics files (.jpg, .bmp, etc) because in thumbnail view I can see thumbnails of the actual pictures.
SewIconz is simple. You run it once, and tell it which files (.pes, .hus, there's a long list) you want included. After that one run, from then on Windows Explorer will show actual thumbnails of your design files, rather than just the program icon it shows normally. If you hover the cursor, you get an info box with size of design and number of stitches, also.
Exactly what I wanted, and I can see all my files at once, so I can move, copy etc. any .txt or .jpg files along with the designs they go with. And it's cheap, just $15. Embird has a similar program for $20, but it's a plug-in, not a stand-alone. So if you already have Embird, you might prefer their Iconizer. Since I don't have Embird, the stand alone SewIconz is better for me for now.
Thanks to all of you who sent me emails (on and off list) with suggestions, I saw some great programs to put on my wish list for later (like Embird, and Buzz Tools). But for now, this will do what I want, and leave me with some money left for designs, LOL.
Merriweather
(sorry to be so long winded)
