Blinking folder icons

[Milan]

In the browser, if you return to a previous directory, all folders up to the folder you came from, except the first one, will blink (like relatively slowly redraw so you can see it. The whole folder icon will blink with all small thumbnails in it.). All other folders behind this directory (in the list) will not blink. The same behavior occurs if I change directory sorting order from name to date (for example). My OS is Win10 64bit. You must have a lot of folders with images to see the flickering. I made a video which shows the issue. Here is link to the video: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/oCAfez5YKQ

Can you please look into it?

Thank you.

Regards,
Milan

[xnview]

you means that thumbnails for some folders don't appear right now?

[Milan]

you means that thumbnails for some folders don't appear right now?

Thanks for your reply. No, I don’t mean just thumbnails, but the entire (yellow, rectangular) folder icon with all image thumbnails in it.

I decreased the speed of my original video to 25% so you can better see what I mean (the interesting part start at 0:16). The video is located at the same address as I posted above (when you load this page click on the video that is on the left-hand side).

About the problem: What I don’t understand is why the folders behind the 1st one and the one I came from appeared slowly while the other folders behind them appeared instantly.

[Milan]

I came with an idea why some folders appear after some delay (which is observed as folder blinking). When I return from some directory, you probably give order to plot the first directory (with all thumbnail in it), then all directories behind the folder I came from (including). Since I have many folders in the current directory, it takes some time until all folders up to the end are prepared (loaded from a database). Only then the folders in between the first one and the one I came from are loaded from the database. In my current view I cannot see all folders, I see only few of them. Therefore, to my observation, they load instantly. Unfortunately, it takes some time until the last folder from the list is loaded. Until now, no thumbnails were loaded for directories between the first one and the one I came from. When they appear, I see it as a delay. It is just my guess.

Below is a screenshot capturing folder drawing sequence. In a magenta-framed area the folders (with image thumbnails) appear with a delay. In the meantime you can see these open folder icons which will be replaced later by folder icons with thumbnails.

[xnview]

Is it possible to have the subfolder? Which sorting do you use? do you use thumbnails caching?

[Milan]

Is it possible to have the subfolder?

The folder you see above was created for demonstration purposes. Its size is 2GBs, but because all subfolders contain the same set of images, it can be compressed to a small 6MB RAR archive. I uploaded the RAR named "test.rar" here: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/oCAfez5YKQ

Which sorting do you use?

I use sorting by Date (Descending). But I tested also regular sorting by name (Ascending and Descending) and the blinking behaved the same.

do you use thumbnails caching?

Yes I do. These are my program settings (I think I use defaults except a thumbnail size):
[YES] Enable catalog
Compression: Lossless (ZIP)
Width: 192px, Height: 144px
[NO] Max size for cached thumbs
Mem usage for db engine: 100MiB (tried 2000MiB, no positive effect)
[NO] Check integrity

I use the portable version of XnView MP (64bit). The one you can download as the zipped program folder from your website. I tried today to extract XnView MP into different folder and start with clean "profile" (settings, cache). The folder blinking behaved that same on my test folder.

When I disabled the catalog (cache), closed the program and started it again, the drawing sequence of folder icons with a thumbnail view was different (see screenshot below).

[xnview]

Ok, i understand now. The thumbnail creation starts on selected item, so you have a delay for thumbnails on items before selected item.
I'll try to change that, first selected item, and after items visible, and last others...

[Milan]

Thanks for your time and effort.

I just want to add that the situation is a bit different when catalog (cache) is enabled (see screenshot below). In such case, the thumbnail folders marked with pink arrow will appear on the screen immediately (with no visible delay). Thumbnails of other folders marked with red arrow will appear on the screen with a delay (and perceived as blinking). The same behavior as described in my 1st (uppermost) post.

[Milan]

I'll try to change that, first selected item, and after items visible, and last others...

that would be great

[Milan]

Hello Pierre,

I’ve got an idea how to reduce the blinking even more. See the screenshots above. Until thumbnails are prepared, the directories have an open folder icon. Later, when thumbnails are ready, the icon changes to another (which is the main cause of blinking, because the icon shape changes). I suggest using the same icon for both directory-loading stages and just gradually add thumbnails to them as they load.

Milan