Help on Catalog and thumbnail caching - privacy

[mrwul]

should I enable thumbnail caching, or not?
if not, what is the effect with regards to the speed of XnViewMP? (Does it matter?)

Personally, I always disable thumbnail caching, in every program and OS, so it wont take up space (and, on SSD/flash memory, to avoid frequent instances of writing to it), but the purpose of thumbnail caches, is to speed things up, so that the computer doesn't have to create thumbnails from scratch every time.
Hence, browsing is a bit slower, for me. Barely noticeable, with a small number of files, but it does take a bit of time to properly load, when browsing folders/categories with larger amounts of files.
So it is a matter of priorities.

Thanks a lot!

Meanwhile I disabled thumbnail caching as well.

Still puzzled about the folder listing. I believe they only show what folders have been used last.
(AFAIK you cannot double click the folder so as to jump to that folder, neither is there a context menu)

I understand that one can 'exclude' such folders in the 'Exclude-Include' tab. However, over time there are many different folders and one needs to add them to the [Exclude/Include] tab one by one.

As a workaround, it seems to work adding entire drives there... (select one by one from "This PC")

Like this:

XnView-Settings-Catalog-Exclude drives-29082023 072406.png

Anyway, it could be that this folder listing is of use to others though. For me personally, it would be nice to have an for 'Do not show directory listing' or something like that.

[philalethia]

Anyway, it could be that this folder listing is of use to others though. For me personally, it would be nice to have an for 'Do not show directory listing' or something like that.

That would be good
...but only if there is even any kind of reason, for the listing to exist, at all.

[philalethia]

That does nothing.
Excluded folders will still be included in the list, as soon as you browse them.

I've tried and it works. Do you use a 'base path'?

Yes. How/why would that matter?

...and, again:
Why does the list exist?
Why is a list of browsed directories, stored?
What possible purpose, does it serve?

Why don't you answer, why the list exists?
What possible purpose it serves.
Obviously it isn't to list what folders have thumbnails, as the folders get listed, even if thumbnail caching is disabled.

[xnview]

Why don't you answer, why the list exists?
What possible purpose it serves.
Obviously it isn't to list what folders have thumbnails, as the folders get listed, even if thumbnail caching is disabled.

When you browse a folder, file's info & thumbnail (by default) is stored in database to speed up file's browsing...

[philalethia]

Why don't you answer, why the list exists?
What possible purpose it serves.
Obviously it isn't to list what folders have thumbnails, as the folders get listed, even if thumbnail caching is disabled.

When you browse a folder, file's info & thumbnail (by default) is stored in database to speed up file's browsing...

...except, as I said, if you disable thumbnail caching (which should also disable the file info caching? If not, there should be an option to disable it), then that isn't relevant.
As such, that would completely erase the purpose of listing the folders, wouldn't it?
Thus, that cannot be the reason.

So then, what is the real reason, for the listing of the folders one has browsed?

[xnview]

So then, what is the real reason, for the listing of the folders one has browsed?

speed

[philalethia]

How does the listing of browsed folders help with speed, when caching file info & thumbnails is disabled?

[xnview]

How does the listing of browsed folders help with speed, when caching file info & thumbnails is disabled?

If you exclude folder from catalog, they are not added in catalog

[philalethia]

If you exclude folder from catalog, they are not added in catalog

That isn't an answer to the question:
How does the listing of browsed folders help with speed, when caching file info & thumbnails is disabled?
...and if it doesn't:
What possible purpose is there, for the listing of folders one has browsed, when thumbnail caching is disabled?

[xnview]

You can't disable file info caching, only by exclude folders

[philalethia]

You can't disable file info caching

Why not?