Thumnail Junkie Inquiries

HandsOff! · Post by **HandsOff!** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:05 am

Hi-

Before I try XnView, I wanted to ask some questions about how it handles thumbnails in windows XP:

Question #1
I have windows XP and I have a lot of images, many of which are in the PSD format. XP's explorer is basically useless for image browsing, but it does have a nice feature that not all file viewers have. It allows you to see four little pictures as a sample of the images in the folder. This is a very nice feature. once you are used to it, it is hard to do without. So...Does XnView support this feature?

Question #2
Does XnView cache thumnail views separately from XP, and if so, where does it store the files.

Question #3
By now you know I like thumbnails! XP supports up to size 128x128 px. What size thumbnails does Xnview allow for.

...Well, I better not get to carried away on my first post. Sorry if these questions are already answered somewhere else. I did try looking, but most reviews seem to focus on exotic features I don't care about. I just want to view my files!

- HandsOff!

ckv · Post by **ckv** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:04 am

This topic is in the wrong catecory, but that's ok some nice mod will move it to better place soon.

#1. The current stable version (XnView 1.80.3) don't support this feature, but the nex version (XnView 1.82) will have this feature. XnView 1.82 is currently in beta test stage so the new stable version will be available probably on january. You can find the beta version in this forum if you are interested.

#2. Yes XnView cache thumnails. By default XnView saves the cache in subdirectory of the XnView installation directory, but you can change the directory or disable the whole cache.

#3. XnView allows to select any size between 32px 32px - 2048px 2048px for thumbnails.
I have no idea who would like to use thumbnails big as 2048px 2048px

HandsOff! · Post by **HandsOff!** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 11:43 pm

Hi -

Thanks for your quick answer. I guess my timing is pretty good if they are in the process of implimenting this additional feature! Right now I am using ACDsee4.02. It also does not do the pictures on folders thing. But more importantly it has a habbit of crashing if it finds something it does not like in a folder.

About caching thumbnails. When using explore in XP caching thumbnails is pretty much out of the question, considering it never deletes anything out of them. Which leads to the next questions:

#4
Does XnView update the thumbnail cache when additions and deletions are made to image files where it has cached the contents?

#5
When I navigate to a folder with, say, a couple hundred screenshots. Is it going to lock the computer while it caches the images or can it do this in the background?

Thanks Again,
HandsOff!

ckv · Post by **ckv** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 5:15 pm

#4. Sorry I don't know answer for this. I don't personally use the cache at all.

#5. I tested this with folder containing 300+ images and XnView won't lock the computer (as I expected) and you can continue working with other programs. But there are some topics in this forum about proplems while working with very large image files (100+ MB) or folders containing thousands of images.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:55 am

Thanks for the reply. I do not understand how it can be possible to for XnView to create hundreds of thumbnails so quickly.

My scenario is this: I around 10,000 image files in my main photo folder. They are loosely organised into subfolders. I try to keep it to less than 100 images per folder, but I do jump from folder to folder when I am looking for something or reorganizing. I would guess it would be necessary to have the images cached.

I will have to experiment. If it can build 100 thumbnails from 3 mb files in 2 or 3 seconds then maybe I don't need cache. That sounds impossible to me, but then so do a lot of things! I may as well just in and try it!

HandsOff! · Post by **HandsOff!** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:57 am

That was no guest, that was me!

just writing this so I get notification of a reply...

-HandsOff!

Olivier_G · Post by **Olivier_G** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:11 am

#4: There is an 'Optimize Cache' function in the Options to clean the cache (of files deleted, renamed, moved...).
And when you browse files with XnView, it will automatically update the Thumbnails of files added or modified.

#5 and your comment: XnView can take advantage of a small image embedded in a JPEG or RAW file from a digital camera, in order to speed up the Thumbnails creation quite a lot (10x faster?). This embedded image is a small JPEG added as metadata, and weight a few KB. this option can be unchecked (I do so to have an accurate&updated thumbnail).

I would recommend to use Cache, (Compression: Lossy - High Quality), for that kind of use (photography).

Olivier

ckv · Post by **ckv** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:35 pm

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the reply. I do not understand how it can be possible to for XnView to create hundreds of thumbnails so quickly.

Well it's not quick, but it won't lock your computer while working. XnView works as hard as possible, but won't steal whole processor cycles. Any modern computer should manage just fine.

Anonymous wrote:My scenario is this: I around 10,000 image files in my main photo folder. They are loosely organised into subfolders. I try to keep it to less than 100 images per folder, but I do jump from folder to folder when I am looking for something or reorganizing. I would guess it would be necessary to have the images cached.

Cache on, absolutely.

Anonymous wrote:I will have to experiment. If it can build 100 thumbnails from 3 mb files in 2 or 3 seconds then maybe I don't need cache. That sounds impossible to me, but then so do a lot of things! I may as well just in and try it!

Spare yourself from testing. Theres no way that XnView could create the thumbs so fast... Maybe if the files have embedded thumbnails, but I doubt.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:15 pm

Hi,

I really appreciate the answers to what some might call 'dumb questions', but I like to know what to expect. Like I may have mentioned before, I have yet to find a picture viewer that doesn't just break under the load of my picture viewing. And that's pretty sad! I can live with the reality of thumbnails taking some time to create, but once created, I would hope that they do not continually have to be recreated. But the logistics of the problem is not that easy. When pictures get moves so must thumbnails (or at least links to them updated).

I'm going to install XnView 1.80.03 full today. I have high hopes for it!

-HandsOff (Oh, I see I might be Annonymous again)!