[quote=Ludek post_id=474055 time=1603922460 user_id=7319]
Sounds good to me, actually the code for this already exists -- as originally the artists have been just collage of album images (like e.g. the genres are currently).

Added as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=17031
[/quote]

Hey Ludek, it looks like the art thumbnails disappear permanently in the artists/album artists grid if you click Default Icon in the Lookup Image screen. Is that intended behavior?

Ah, okay. That's a shame.
All of my album thumbnails total to 6.8 MB, but I guess that for large libraries, it can add up to a lot. Maybe the thumbnails can be transformed into spritesheets, so they can be loaded 5-10 at a time, reducing the number of internal network requests? I guess that would be pretty complex to do, but now I'm just throwing ideas at the wall.

Hi, thanks for the feedback. As the images are already cached locally in the temp dir then I don't expect that caching it by browser would help much unless the images are cached in memory, but in that case it would grow up the memory used by MM processes which is not good especially when MM is still 32-bit application with the 4GB memory limits (and thus risk of out-of memory exceptions). But we will definetly consider it (and try) when making further optimizations.

EDIT: As confirmed with devs the cache was intentianally disabled for the local files (as it consumed a lot of memory)

I'm trying to think of how the thumbnail files are served (file:///temp/Thumbs/7D/9DUVYWS1WN9WCGFI-200px.jpg) - Is there some native code/program acting as a local webserver, that serves thumbnails from those temp directory?

The network request headers appear to block caching, which I have to assume is the cause of the client Always re-loading Every image when they scroll back into view. Is it possible to change the cache-control headers to something like max-age=3600, to see if that reduces the scroll stuttering? I really do think it would make a big difference.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/z8HOkLe.png[/img]

[quote=Ludek post_id=474074 time=1603982882 user_id=7319]
OK, checking this today and there really was a regression introduced: MM is trying to repeatedly load thumbs for files with no artwork --> resulting also in the lags described by you. I have fixed this issue for 2272 as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=17033 (details in Mantis)

Thanks!
[/quote]

It's a lot better now than it was before, but scrolling quickly is still pretty stuttery. I think that for a good UX when MM5 is released to the general public, the UI slowdowns should be ironed out - Even if it's not a huge priority at the moment. Here's a demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df_TpO8iDJY
Watch it at 60 fps. It doesn't look as bad on video, but the stutters still feel quite awkward when you experience them yourself. I have a feeling that if the thumbnails are cached in memory, even if the cache lasts for just a few minutes, it would make it a lot smoother when browsing the grid views.

[quote=drakinite post_id=474192 time=1604206888 user_id=107828]
I thought that MM5 didn't automatically locate artist pictures (at least not by default, and I wasn't aware that it was capable of doing so). All my artist thumbnails were blank until I started manually populating each one.
[/quote]

I think that it is intentionally off by default, because if on at 1st start up it gives a negative 1st impression of MM5, due to all the 1st through background processing and Internet access.

Maybe it will get mention in their Quick Start documentation.

[quote=Barry4679 post_id=474189 time=1604197833 user_id=28275]
I would prefer to have the option for MM5 to use album art collages for all (albumartist) artists, ie. not just the artists where you cannot locate an artist picture .... I do recognise the artwork from my albums. As drakinite points out this works well in MMA, and it will work even better in MM5 due to the greater thumb size.
[/quote]
I thought that MM5 didn't automatically locate artist pictures (at least not by default, and I wasn't aware that it was capable of doing so). All my artist thumbnails were blank until I started manually populating each one.

Sounds like a reasonable suggestion ...

[quote=Ludek post_id=474055 time=1603922460 user_id=7319]
Sounds good to me, actually the code for this already exists -- as originally the artists have been just collage of album images (like e.g. the genres are currently).
[/quote]

I do like what you have done here, but actually prefer Drakinite's original request.

[quote=drakinite post_id=474036 time=1603901692 user_id=107828]
Hi,

A feature I really like in MMA (As well as many other music apps) is that the artist/album artist views automatically create thumbnails from their albums. I'm used to that way of visually identifying albums, and it would be nice if undefined artist thumbnails would default to showing their album art.

Blank artist thumbnails showing the first two letters and a random color doesn't really do it for me, and I don't like the grid being filled with a bunch of faces (since most artist profile pictures are just pics of their face). :P
[/quote]

I reinstall MM5 so often during the alpha & beta, I have turned off the option to import artist images. ... There are around 4,000 of them, and I don't know what most of them look like. .. The screen becomes a bit like a rouges gallery of unknown faces, and in the case of groups, they are indistinguishable tiny faces. ... A messy jumble really.

I think that it is good that you offer the existing option, and many people will like it, especially for smaller collections. ... I like it for Composers, as I have few of them, as I have blanked the composer tag for all non-classical tracks.

I would prefer to have the option for MM5 to use album art collages for [b]all[/b] (albumartist) artists, ie. not just the artists where you cannot locate an artist picture .... I [i]do recognise[/i] the artwork from my albums. As drakinite points out this works well in MMA, and it will work even better in MM5 due to the greater thumb size.

It would be good to be able to recognise albumartist people in the Artist sub-node (ie. they would have a collage vs a face or a two alpha summary).
Or it would be OK if non-albumartist artists showed a collage of whatever mixed track albums they appeared in, if that is easier for you.

Possible?

Yes; though I do think it's a nice aesthetic, and they're still somewhat recognizable to someone who is familiar with the albums.
Also I don't mean to replace the 4- and 9- album galleries; this is a suggestion for artists (and genres) that have either two or three albums.

Stacked hides the Artwork mostly for all but the top Artwork.

How difficult would it be to add cases where there are two and three albums, like these (assuming that the additional images don't come with a performance hit)?

[img]https://i.imgur.com/5bNtQe3.png[/img]

I was surprised how easy it was to make these by tweaking the existing 4-album gallery thumbnails.
For the 3-album one, I set all three thumbnails to 80% width; the bottom one has top & left of 0% and a z-index of -2; the middle one has a top & left of 10% and z-index of -1; and the frontmost has a top & left of 20% and z-index of 0.
Then for the 2-album one, I set both thumbnails to 85% width; the bottom one has top & left of 0% and z-index of -1; and the front one has a top & left of 15% and a z-index of 0.

I'm not sure whether including the z-index helps save processing time for the render engine or not. But if it does hurt performance, it could be omitted since the browser automatically layers them back-to-front.

I don't know how everyone else would feel about it, but I really like the look of the stacked album art in MMA and I think it would look great in the desktop app.

Ah, good catch, thanks for fixing it!

OK, checking this today and there really was a regression introduced: MM is trying to repeatedly load thumbs for files with no artwork --> resulting also in the lags described by you. I have fixed this issue for 2272 as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=17033 (details in Mantis)

Thanks!

I'll verify it tomorrow, but it is caching the thumbs (in the temp dir) and also the thumb links in memory (unless there ia a regression)

But probably you tested genres grid when the thumbs haven't been cached yet and needed to be created?

Also based on my tests the scrolling was always smooth (until I run DbgView). DbgView somehow causes the scrolling to not be smooth. But I am going to re-test it tomorrow.