Re: Possible speed enhancement

[Christian Kirbach <christian kirbach googlemail com>]

On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:19:28 +0200, Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>  
wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-10-06 at 15:35 +0200, Milosz Derezynski wrote:

> > One other thing that occured to me is that it would be possible to
> > list files very quickly without checking the type,
> > and then (in a thread) read the types and display the according icons
> > (or generally the thumbnails).

That is precisely what I have in mind as well, and other OS also do it.


> It sounds good in theory, but in practice it doesn't really speed
> anything up, because as you read in the file types after the fact things
> flash around and change a lot, sometimes being re-sorted or just
> re-drawn.

Isn't it that shifting that is already happening today when the  
thumbnailer kicks in and
shows image and pdf previews? It seems to happen because the thumbnails  
have
a size different from the generic "wait for preview" icons.
So what is the point in doing it (using sort of generic icons before  
showing final icons/
thumbnails/whatever) for files getting thumbnailed but not for other files  
in large directories?

I strongly believe that flashing/shifting will be insignificant if  
replacement icons of the
generic icons are of the same size, i.e. they fit in perfectly, and if we  
do it in bulk updates,
not icon by icon.

Don't get me wrong; if implementing this takes tremendous efforts we  
should certainly
consider delaying it in favour of more important work.

Regards
--
Christian Kirbach
Christian Kirbach googlemail com