XnView Software

Is is it possible to pre-scan a particular folder with sub-folders to generate thumbnails and/or header information?
It is very slow to have to manually navigate through a large tree structure just complete these scans.

Alternatively, auto-scanning a folder as it is opened is not optimal as it consumes a lot of CPU cycles, making image browsing very slow.

viking wrote:Is is it possible to pre-scan a particular folder with sub-folders to generate thumbnails and/or header information?
It is very slow to have to manually navigate through a large tree structure just complete these scans.

Alternatively, auto-scanning a folder as it is opened is not optimal as it consumes a lot of CPU cycles, making image browsing very slow.

Yes, it is possible. In several ways:

1. (perhaps better) Go Tools | Settings | Database click on 'Add Folder...' - chose your folder and wait till the DB entries are built. You can leave it overnight.
2. (Easier but for fewer files) Chose the folder, right click and chose 'Show Files (Recursive)'

...as an aside, regarding to what you are saying:

I don't know how Pierre programmed the things but usually by far the biggest bottleneck usually it should be the time spent reading the file(s) from the disk. How many and how big are the files which you want to see?

Also, you could try to move the images and DB on separate disks, different from OS disk which usually is quite busy, especially if you have an antivirus there.

Btw, what system do you have? OS? CPU? RAM? HD? XnView version? Compression type in DB? (btw, I have JPG - High Quality on an i5 CPU together with 2 (two) VM opened and a bunch of other programs and XnViewMP 0.6 moves quite fast).