Is there a way I can instruct DOpus to get to work on building the thumbnails for images in a set of folders before I actually go to the folder(s)?
Rather than having to wait to give DOpus enough time to build the thumbnails for a large collection in a folder before I can properly review them, it would be handy if I could tell DOpus to get on with other folders ahead of time.
[Discussion about cache sizes removed as it's already being discussed in another thread and may confuse things in this thread.]
It's just my main archive of photos from digital cameras saved over the last 15+ years, sorted in folders by year and then day, sometimes there are video files from the cameras in there too, but rarely, so that's not really the problem.
The files are stored on a local had drive and I needed to go through them all the other day to find all our cat images for my daughter. It took ages, mostly because of the long times it took DOpus to build the thumbnails whenever there were quite a few in a particular day's folder, maybe 20-30 or more per folder. It all added more time to my searching than it took me to mentally scan the images and I was waiting forever it seems at times for large collections (sorted per day) to render (my computer is a fast graphics workstation so things are pretty much as quick as can be).
Setting off a few tabs to be getting on with while I do other things may be a slight help, but a pain.
However, viewing existing caches might be okay from now on for already cached thumbnails (but not new ones) - as noted in my addition to another post and what I thought was a 6GB limitation problem - (this may help someone!) - it seems I was stupidly forgetting to press the "Apply" or "OK" button on the remaining Preferences window after adjusting the cache figure. Working now, FIXED, Sorry for my stupidity!
Yes, I've tried that before, but my point is more that even doing it folder by folder, it actually takes a long time if there are a hundred images or more, the more there are, the slower it seems to take for each one, bit by bit.
Flat view would do the lot in one go I suppose, helping to more easily build the thumbnail cache if I left it running beforehand, but potentially a lot longer to see everything right there and then, especially if DOPus does slow down for the larger the number of images there is to do - Maybe I'm imagining that, but in my various long periods of waiting around the other day, larger directories of images did seem to take longer (per image on average).
Yeah, I was thinking more of a one-time thing you do overnight. Let it crunch all those thumbs while you sleep It's basically the same thing as if Dopus had a "cache all" button and it ran in the background. Something I think you would also want to do overnight.
You may also want to look into installing JPEG 2000. It might help create thumbnails faster. Actually, It looks like it might already be installed by default since Dopus 9. Just might need to activate it under Preferences / Viewer / Viewer Plugins.
I installed a 3rd party program called Media Preview. I use this for all my Video Thumbnails and it looks that I had that also set for Image Thumbnails. I never really noticed slow thumbs. Maybe it was because I've used Media Preview for so many years. I don't know. That also might explain why I had JPEG 2000 unchecked.
Media Preview also has a tab called Testing and Cache. It can go ahead and fill up thumbnail cache by scanning all local drives for supported media files. No idea how this would work with Dopus's cache though.
Anyways. Good luck with your thumbnailing adventures
Yes, JPEG 2000, I think it's mostly dead now. Apparently it can produce smoother/better compression results, but it never caught on due to potential patent issues of it algorithms and it's not supported in most things internet. I read that its smoother (or less visible) artefacts also caused problems in the medical industry, making certain conditions difficult to see. The blocky artefacts of ordinary jpegs being easier to distinguish. Why the medical profession used jpegs in the first place beats me though if it was so critical to see things accurately!
I think I may have just realised (remembered) why my thumbnail cache images are taking longer than normally might be expected. A while ago I altered DOpus's maximum thumbnail size to be generated to 384 pixels. I did this so I could view my images better in a DOpus lister without having to actually go into a viewer so that I could more easily review contents and sort best images, delete bad ones, etc. It works well, but of course, it's going to take its toll on initial generation times (& cache folder size).
It's basically the same thing as if Dopus had a "cache all" button and it ran in the background. Something I think you would also want to do overnight.