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flatcatch · Nov 18, 2003, 07:12 PM

Why is OS X absolutely useless when it comes to updating icon thumbnails? It seems to start updating some icons... then gets bored and leaves the rest as generic jpg or whatever the file happens to be. Scrolling in and out of view won't create the thumbnails, closing the window and re-opening won't create the thumbnails. However, after a minute or so OS X decides to slowly finish the rest. I've seen this on iBooks to G5s.. Jaguar and Panther.

What is up with this? I have a 400Mhz PC laptop w/ Win2000 which runs circles around my 800Mhz iBook (w/ Panther) when it comes to generating thumbnails for image files. Even a 1.6Ghz G5 doesn't rip through thumbnail generation on larger files (1-2MB).

Whoever is responsible for this feature is X should be slapped around. It's absolute crap.

If there is a god above listening to me, please, please, give me a Windows style F5 'refresh' command since X is incapable of doing it independently.

ASIMO · Nov 18, 2003, 08:26 PM

Chill out, son. It does your health no good.

Other than agreeing with you that OS X does not handle graphics previews in finder as well as XP in some respects, I do not have any answer.

Just kidding. I am omniscient, but I am not telling.

-God, computer guru.

moonmonkey · Nov 18, 2003, 10:11 PM

Originally posted by flatcatch:
Why is OS X absolutely useless when it comes to updating icon thumbnails? It seems to start updating some icons... then gets bored and leaves the rest as generic jpg or whatever the file happens to be. Scrolling in and out of view won't create the thumbnails, closing the window and re-opening won't create the thumbnails. However, after a minute or so OS X decides to slowly finish the rest. I've seen this on iBooks to G5s.. Jaguar and Panther.

I agree, try opening a photo CD.

The pain...

Why dont they stick either?
They seem to disapear all the time.

Spliffdaddy · Nov 18, 2003, 10:50 PM

Windows isn't immune to the "incomplete thumbnailing" issue. Very often I'll get a stall of nearly a minute before all the thumbnails are displayed. Occasionally, it'll just stall altogether. Dragging the scrollbar (if any) around will sometimes jostle the stubborn thumbnails into submission. The same is true of both Win2000 & XP.

This problem is more frequent when browsing the contents of a CD than the hard drive. Maybe there is a corrupt .jpg or two that is stalling the preview thingy.

But anyhow, you are not alone.

dtriska · Nov 18, 2003, 11:17 PM

Originally posted by flatcatch:
It seems to start updating some icons... then gets bored and leaves the rest as generic jpg or whatever the file happens to be.

Teraflops of computing power, a rock solid Unix OS, and you want it to generate thumbnail previews? I'd get bored, too.

KidRed · Nov 18, 2003, 11:47 PM

Originally posted by flatcatch:
Why is OS X absolutely useless when it comes to updating icon thumbnails? It seems to start updating some icons... then gets bored and leaves the rest as generic jpg or whatever the file happens to be. Scrolling in and out of view won't create the thumbnails, closing the window and re-opening won't create the thumbnails. However, after a minute or so OS X decides to slowly finish the rest. I've seen this on iBooks to G5s.. Jaguar and Panther.

What is up with this? I have a 400Mhz PC laptop w/ Win2000 which runs circles around my 800Mhz iBook (w/ Panther) when it comes to generating thumbnails for image files. Even a 1.6Ghz G5 doesn't rip through thumbnail generation on larger files (1-2MB).

Whoever is responsible for this feature is X should be slapped around. It's absolute crap. If there is a god above listening to me, please, please, give me a Windows style F5 'refresh' command since X is incapable of doing it independently.

No issues here on my dual gig. Icons are pretty fast at updating. Just tried it using Photoshop, damn near instant for me. Not sure why all the cussing and anger, but it's not a global issue. I can;t imagine if I don't see this, that G5s would have this issue either. Maybe it depends on the app using and how quickly the system gets that info.

wy4tt · Nov 19, 2003, 12:09 AM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Windows isn't immune to the "incomplete thumbnailing" issue. Very often I'll get a stall of nearly a minute before all the thumbnails are displayed. Occasionally, it'll just stall altogether. Dragging the scrollbar (if any) around will sometimes jostle the stubborn thumbnails into submission. The same is true of both Win2000 & XP.

This problem is more frequent when browsing the contents of a CD than the hard drive. Maybe there is a corrupt .jpg or two that is stalling the preview thingy.

But anyhow, you are not alone.

i must say that my xp system has never had a problem with thumbnails. but i do agree that it takes a second longer if viewing from cd.

Spliffdaddy · Nov 19, 2003, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by wy4tt:
i must say that my xp system has never had a problem with thumbnails. but i do agree that it takes a second longer if viewing from cd.

After waiting over a minute...

WinXP thumbnailing CD contents

DigitalEl · Nov 19, 2003, 12:29 AM

Man, again I thought that was just an issue on my suddenly-aging G4 iMac.

RoofusPennymore · Nov 19, 2003, 01:10 AM

I notice this sometimes too. Seems certain files update better than others. Depends on what app created the jpg I suppose.

sodamnregistered2 · Nov 19, 2003, 01:15 AM

I'm not sure all files have preview infomation. Like, not all .jpg files will have preview information. Depends what app created the file and where it came from.

barbarian · Nov 19, 2003, 02:05 AM

the thumbnail issue is a little embarrassing. Especially on a G5.

Gee4orce · Nov 19, 2003, 02:21 AM

Worse still - it seems that Panther needs a .jpg extension on the filename, whereas Jaguar handled such files just fine. Files without an extensions just show as 'Unix Executable' files on my machine.

Whatever happened to type and creator codes ?!? Why have we ended up with the worst feature of windows ?!

Cipher13 · Nov 19, 2003, 04:41 AM

I assumed it was just my machines...

crouchingtiger · Nov 19, 2003, 04:51 AM

yeah, I find this annoying too. What's the point of generating the thumbnails if you have to generate them EVERY damn time.

Also, if I "save to disk" an image from a web site to the desktop in Safari, the icon that is created is just a few lines of the top of the image with the rest of the icon totally gray. I need to do a logout/login to get the icon to update to a full size preview.

Eug · Nov 19, 2003, 08:07 AM

Yep. Same problem here. It starts generating the thumbnails... then stops, and then 30 seconds later, starts again. WTF? And on top of that it's just plain slow. TiBook 1 GHz with 768 MB RAM.

Lew · Nov 19, 2003, 10:36 AM

Originally posted by dtriska:
Teraflops of computing power, a rock solid Unix OS, and you want it to generate thumbnail previews? I'd get bored, too.

"Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to generate image previews."

Fonzie · Nov 19, 2003, 12:48 PM

I hate the fact that I always get a little "ear" on my image previews. And the image previews are low on quality too (800Mhz Geforce4 Panther)

macfly · Nov 19, 2003, 01:59 PM

yeah, i gotta say, i had a tibook and a dell home pc with xp before i just bought a g5 dual. the xp was almost instantaneous when browsing a full folder of porn mpegs, i mean...uh...never mind. but anyway. on the mac it is really embarrasing. the time to load them that is. for instance, in my desktop preference paine i like to put my i photo folder in the list of folders so i can choose at will. if i switch to this folder to pick a pic it literally takes minutes to show them all, and its not that huge , maybe a gig of pics?
why is this a problem with all the supposed graphics bells and whistles of osx?

flatcatch · Nov 19, 2003, 03:00 PM

The thumbnail issue bothers me since, IMHO, iPhoto doesn't cut it for useful photo file management. I take a ton of photos and I like fast, heirarchical browsing and access via folders (that's the theory of course).

On the Windows side, even if some thumbnails are impartially drawn, at least you can select one or more files, right click, and choose 'update thumbnail' to fix things. Sure that may be a bit of a hack, but given that Windows already runs circles around OS X in this area automatically, I'll let it slide.

For such a visibly evident shortcoming I'm surprised how little effort Apple has put forth. Do they think no one ever double-clicks a folder full of digital camera images and does a view-by-icon?

Apfhex · Nov 19, 2003, 06:02 PM

I had no idea such a feature existed on MacOS X! How long has it been there?

Anyway, it's true, after trying it out myself, it seems to at some point just give up, but then starts again a little while later. It especially has problems when viewing large digital camera images (in the 1600x1200 and up range).

I always use GraphicConverter for browsing folders of images anyway.

flatcatch · Nov 21, 2003, 06:39 PM

Originally posted by Apfhex:
I had no idea such a feature existed on MacOS X! How long has it been there?

Anyway, it's true, after trying it out myself, it seems to at some point just give up, but then starts again a little while later. It especially has problems when viewing large digital camera images (in the 1600x1200 and up range).

I always use GraphicConverter for browsing folders of images anyway.

Whoa! I never used that feature in Graphic Converter. I'm in love! Thanks for mentioning it!

vsurfer · Nov 21, 2003, 08:15 PM

Originally posted by Apfhex:
I had no idea such a feature existed on MacOS X! How long has it been there?

Anyway, it's true, after trying it out myself, it seems to at some point just give up, but then starts again a little while later. It especially has problems when viewing large digital camera images (in the 1600x1200 and up range).

I always use GraphicConverter for browsing folders of images anyway.

Woh!

Didn't know GC could do it quite like "that." And with a file browser on the left to boot. Pretty cool.

Michel Fortin · Nov 22, 2003, 08:43 AM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Worse still - it seems that Panther needs a .jpg extension on the filename, whereas Jaguar handled such files just fine. Files without an extensions just show as 'Unix Executable' files on my machine.

Whatever happened to type and creator codes ?!? Why have we ended up with the worst feature of windows ?!

I guess the files where unpaked by Stuffit. Until recently, Stuffit did put the unix executable flag on every files it expanded as an easy way to make sure unstuffed applications would work. This is why Panther assume they are 'Unix Executable'. Jaguar's Finder just ignored that bit.

And for some reason, if a file has an extension Panther give it the correct file type even if the executable bit is set.