Suggestion to solve the Thumbnail generation issue

Panels
#1

My rather large (iCloud) Comics Library has its comics stored in Alphabetical folders (A to Z), containing folders per writer (as artists tend to switch while most series have a definite “author/showrunner”, containing “series”, then “runs”, then individual comics. Graphic Novels are stored at the writer level. Multi-writer franchises (Marvel/DC/…) are stored in separate structures (but my main interest goes to limited, finished series anyhow).

I too have noticed the “greyed out thumbnails” bug.

As a partial solution and suggested feature, I’d like to propose a “lock thumbnail” option for folders. These thumbnails (Just as eg my custom “Alphabet” folders “A”, “B”, etc…) can “burn” their (temporary) thumbnail into a permanent “image” thumbnail.

This would have scanning/thumbnail creation skip these folders, and they also would no longer need to create an everchanging thumbnail whenever the contents switch.

As an example: my “REMENDER, Rick” folder, which now needs to check whatever folder(s) it contains, would sport the series I’d put front & center (eg “Fear Agent”) and create a thumbnail from this. If I were okay with a “Fear Agent” cover as representative of the “REMENDER, Rick” folder, I could then choose to “Lock the thumbnail”, and it would avoid thumbnails to be created, calculated, etc… at each new series I were to add to the “REMENDER, Rick” folder.

PS: Love the app, btw.

#2

Thanks for the feedback. We are constantly working on improving iCloud library performance, and we will. We take note that you’re experience frequent “greyed out thumbnails”.

Unfortunately, things as not as simple. Your suggestion won’t make any difference since thumbnails are not generated in response to comics appearing on scree (or in the folder preview, for that matter). They are always generated regardless of the folder style you’ve chosen.

But we’ll keep working on improving the iCloud integration.

1 Like
#3

Thx for the response. I wasn’t aware that thumbs were always being generated.

Wouldn’t this process become lighter/less buggy (and use less bandwidth) in iCloud AND in other situations, if eg I were to provide a thumbnail?

Esp when dealing with “Omnibus Editions”, this would make a serious difference. I could eg choose to replace a thumbnail with a (chosen) cover image, thereby avoiding the need to download & then delete a 600 MB file every time.

#4

It does not need to be downloaded and deleted every time. Thumbnails are generated only once per file and stored in the same iCloud folder. Before downloading the file, Panels checks whether the thumbnail exists on iCloud or not. If it exists, it only downloads the thumbnail, not the original file.