General improvements for iMatch 6

[ben]

Hi Mario,

since iMatch Anywhere is released now (congratulations!!) and you already started the work on iMatch 6, i thought it would be a good idea to ask for some general improvements. 
I haven't created a feature request yet, since this post contains several different requests. Should i?

File Window:

•   Enable file selections by drawing a dotted rectangle around the files like in the windows file explorer
•   Enable "paste files" from the windows file explorer to iMatch (menu and ctrl+v)
•   Show/update images quicker, when scrolling in the file window. Currently you switch to displaying the filenames next to the scrollingposition and after a short time the images get shown as well. The windows file explorer can scroll much faster. So maybe, you could pause the update of metadata while scroling for example and instead update the images quicker.
•   When increasing the dimensions of the file window, don't scale the thumbnails but show more or less images in each line. You probably have to scale the thumbnails a little bit in order to fill up on complete line, but maximum by 1 image
•   If all thumbnails in a line show images in landscape mode, then you could reduce the empty space over and below that thumbail line. Thus, we can display more images

 
Panels:

•   I love the minimize and maximize buttons of the panel windows to quickly maximize the space for one panel.
      Please add a way to quickly hide and show all panels of one screen side.

   
Presets:

•   Handle presets the same way (e.g. Renamer, Export, ..) like other windows programs do.
      I.e., presets get never overwritten by the current inputs/selection.

   
Fix some visual glitches:

• Glitches when resizing the filewindow, while some panels are open on the right screen side -> see attachement
• Weird animation when opening the filter panel, where all filter categories get higlighted in blue one after the other -> see attachement

 
It would be great to see those improvements in IM6.

Thanks a lot for considering them.

Ben
   

[Mario]

So maybe, you could pause the update of metadata while scroling for example and instead update the images quicker.

Loading, resizing and displaying the thumbnails takes 90% of the time. Not much can be improved her except skipping loading the thumbs until the user stops scrolling.

I've made some tests and Windows 10 explorer scrolls a lot slower than IMatch on my system. Which layout did you use for your test? Thuumbnail size? Database location? Explorer settings?

Glitches when resizing the filewindow, while some panels are open on the right screen side -> see attachement

I guess these extra lines vanish as soon as you stop dragging the border? This gives Windows time to repaint everything. This is just normal.

The filter panel highlights all caption bars once in blue as a visual reminder than the check boxes need to be checked to activate the filter. Also  by intention.

[ben]

Hi Mario,

i finally found some time to think about that again.

File Window:
3)  Show/update images quicker, when scrolling in the file window. Currently you switch to displaying the filenames next to the scrollingposition and after a short time the images get shown as well. The windows file explorer can scroll much faster. So maybe, you could pause the update of metadata while scroling for example and instead update the images quicker.[/li][/list]

Tried it again (Win10, 64Bit, Windows Explorer, ~1400 images)
  - Scrolling the first time, some thumbnails are replaced by a placeholder, i presume they are not cached yet.
  - If i scroll a second time using the scrollbar it shows all thumbnails and i can scroll all images ~1400 without a halt, in roughly half a second.

Using iMatch (v5.8.4):
  - Scrolling by the mouse-wheel i can scroll without a halt as well. But of course i cannot scroll as fast as using the scrollbar
  - Using the scrollbar, iMatch switches to displaying the filenames next to the scrollbar quite quickly. Thus, scrolling is much slower as with the explorer does

Fix some visual glitches:

Glitches when resizing the filewindow, while some panels are open on the right screen side -> see attachement

I guess these extra lines vanish as soon as you stop dragging the border? This gives Windows time to repaint everything. This is just normal.

Yes, they vanish as soon as i stop dragging. An option would be to update only the border and update the window itself only at the end.

I added a screenshot of a website, that does this.
  Red: That's the border you finally want to be moved
  Blue: That's the border that you actually move


Ben

[Mario]

Thus, scrolling is much slower as with the explorer does

Switch to a file window layout which shows only thumbnails and not metadata (maybe the file name). You will experience that IMatch scrolls as fast if not faster as Windows Explorer. Especially if IMatch had a second to load the thumbnails.

Windows repaints while changing the window size are done by the UI framework and Windows. If you drag the frame around faster than Wndows can repaint, you will see the effect. It vanishes as soon as you stop dragging the borders. This is a no-problem and not worth spending time on.

[ben]

Switch to a file window layout which shows only thumbnails and not metadata (maybe the file name). You will experience that IMatch scrolls as fast if not faster as Windows Explorer. Especially if IMatch had a second to load the thumbnails.

I see a different behaviour here, even with "only thumbnails".
If i try to scroll as fast as in the windows explorer, iMatch switches to "not scrolling the thumbnails but showing the filenames in a small box".

Windows repaints while changing the window size are done by the UI framework and Windows. If you drag the frame around faster than Wndows can repaint, you will see the effect. It vanishes as soon as you stop dragging the borders. This is a no-problem and not worth spending time on.

Ok. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying.
I do resize the panels all the time, since i have no second screen.

[Mario]

"not scrolling the thumbnails but showing the filenames in a small box".

Yes. Great, isn't it? This way you can position very fast even in file windows which hold 20,000, 50,000 or more files. IMatch does not need to load the thumbnails and metadata for files you scroll over etc. Especially important if your database is on a slow disk, an external media or on a remote NAS box.

I do resize the panels all the time, since i have no second screen.

I resized the panels once. I use 3 workspaces though, for different phases in my workflow. And I have a 4K monitor.

[Jingo]

I see a different behaviour here, even with "only thumbnails".
If i try to scroll as fast as in the windows explorer, iMatch switches to "not scrolling the thumbnails but showing the filenames in a small box".

This only happens though if you grab the scroll bar and pull up or down.... a nice feature that saves me lots of time when looking for specific groups of filenames (especially useful if your filenames are formatted with dates/time or descriptions).  You can still scroll the thumbsnails by just using your mouse wheel within the file window and then the thumbs will scroll just like it does in Windows.  I just tried this on a group of 10,000 images that reside on a NAS box... no hesitation or issues... thumbs display as I move the wheel....