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ahhhh ok. The lock icon doesn’t say “lock sidebar”, nor does it have a tooltip, so there was no obvious association with sidebar. Please consider either changing the lock icon text or moving it onto the sidebar itself so it is more closely associated with it
I just want to comment on one thing you said:
if thumbs and previews are drawn differently for the same image on different platforms, then it’s confusing.
I think users are more tolerant about this than you think, so long as the end result (good looking usable thumbnails in this case) is the same, and it is communicated to the user — i.e. that the thumbnails being updated happen in the group the user can see at the moment. When this happens users get an idea of what is going on and learn to use it to their advantage.
So the use of a plural implies it will do more than one. If it will only do the single one selected it should say “Rebuild Thumbnail” singular. If you then select more than it should have the plurals. As it is, it implies to me that it would rebuild all thumbnails.
Were it me I would change that behavior, that is of course, up to you. But I would have a “Rebuild All Thumbnails” menu item as well. This would be both a quality of life feature, and help subtly educate what the
I think the app telling you these images don’t have embedded thumbnails (which can happen), or they aren’t big enough for a good user experience, with an option to never see the dialog again is a good thing. Settings could then have the option to set what that threshold is. It is possible I might want them bigger than “normal” for a given value of normal, depending on the subject matter.
I also think you should have at least the option to do these operations (and rotate) in the background and not make the user wait. There are 4+ cores on the systems you support (7+ for the ARM macs), and Grand Central Dispatch is a wonderful thing… when you can use it. And I think it is appropriate to say the behavior needs to be different on different platforms. However reducing the behavior to the Lowest Common Denominator can introduce UX issues.
I want to make it clear, you have made something wonderful, I think this program is amazing. The tone I struck isn’t something I am most proud of, nor was it directed directly at you, but to another contributor; regardless I apologize to both of you. That being said I don’t think I am being unreasonable in saying allow for background processing where it makes sense, scale the experience to the platform, expose the behavior more so the user is understanding what is happening. And if we differ on that, fair enough
OK however if I select a group of images and then select build thumbnails then it updates them all. Can I just update all RAW images without selecting them? Or even just all images?
OH forgot to say, both of those options were on by default for me, it was only by turning off Quick Preview that I was able to get them to update.
I also clearly somehoe missed build thumbails, that is 100% on me. However when I just ran it, it didn’t seem to update the display at all. I had to double click on the image and then escape out
OH forgot to say, both of those options were on by default for me, it was only by turning off Quick Preview that I was able to get them to update.
I also clearly somehoe missed build thumbails, that is 100% on me. However when I just ran it, it didn’t seem to update the display at all. I had to double click on the image and then escape out
Nik, it feels like there is a middle ground, if the embedded thumbnails are below a certain threshold, then warn the user and give them an option; because as it stands I am presented with very low quality thumbnails…
I have trouble calling them thumbnails when that is what I see when I double click as well, this is why I called them proxies
…and empirically it feels like the only solution is to wait. I am glad your alternative exists, but how would I know I need to use it? How would I know to use it without going into settings? I inspected all the menus for an option, but honestly didn’t think to go to settings.
If I sound hostile, it is actually frustation. I spent a couple hours just trying to start rating the pictures. My previous experience with Nitro had been with 50-75 picture shoots, so it wasn’t as obvious what was going on. I personally had assumed that Nitro would have a thread pool that processed the images in the background doing an import on the fly. I am not telling you what to do, but describing my misunderstanding.
I think Nitro is an amazing program, I want to use it as my daily driver for asset management/prep, but I feel like there is a disconnect between how you want the app to work, and how I expect it to. That’s fine, it’s your app, you get to decide, but I think it is obtuse if you live with a camera that is basically an edge case to your expectations.
Also I tried your suggestion, yes I could then visit each image in turn and get it to demand generate a better thumbnail. I had hoped for a batch option, either that worked in the background, or put up a modal progress bar. But visiting every single image and waiting during the review and rating phase doesn’t feel ideal to me
No not at all, but Nitro is the one I would prefer to be using.
Also I have been a professional software engineer who has a bit over 40 years of experience, including in DAM (Digital Asset Management) software — as well as a semi professional photographer for nearly 20 years. But I also not believe I need to be a Subject Matter Expert in either field to have reasonable expectations about the behavior of Nitro in contrast to it’s competitors. It feels like a bad form of Argument from authority.
Nor do I agree that what I made was disparaging comments about the software or the developers. I was pointing out a scenario they apparently didn’t consider and haven’t addressed. I said I couldn’t use it and explained why. I never said anything mean or cruel about the developers (who I have great admiration for, especially because of their previous work on Aperture).
However in two messages now it feels like you are putting the blame on my equipment, or my decision making process, and not based on what the software claims to be able to do; and what the expected behaviors should be.
@Karl Don’t blame the camera for a problem with nitro, nor am I asking for expanded format support. macOS can preview these images just fine and rapidly; and we know that Nitro is using macOS’s build in RAW handling.
I present the idea that these images match the standard and not Nitro’s ideas of embedded thumbnail size (or something of the like). If that is the case, then that is a problem with Nitro. Full stop. No similar program (Lightroom, Rawtherapee, etc) display this problem, only Nitro.
So this is a problem with how Nitro handles processing images outside of it’s assumptions, it is a Nitro problem… not a problem of my camera. Software should handle things like this with grace, and clearly is a scenario the developer didn’t think of. That’s fine, we can’t think of everything, but once made aware they have to decide do they address it or not.
But right now I have 2000+ images from a trip I need to deal with, broken into folders by date, and I have to click on a directory, wait an indeterminate amount of time, and hope all the images have been processed, then move to the next folder and repeat.
This is not tenable, especially because if I step away from my computer for an extended period of time, almost all of the UI elements of Nitro disappear and the app is unusable until I close and repoen the app.
Essentially yes, thumbnails. Whatever you call the images that appear in the grid view. I am working with DNG images that come off either a Yi M1 Micro Four Thirds camera, or from the camera that I am developing which also produces DNGs. In both cases there are embedded thumbnails in the images. I believe I have seen the same phenomena with CR2 files from 50D, but I would have to double check to be sure.
I can’t speak about JPEGs because I have never used Nitro with them lol
This is images fresh from the microSD and placed in a directory. I then open nitro and point it at the directory and work from there. The thumbnails look like a very low resolution image that has been blown up to the size of the thumbnail, if I double click it then it opens and is scaled up further.
If I wait then eventually the image will be processed/re-rendered/whatever the correct term is, and if I double click it then I will see the full sized image. If I hit escape to close it then that thumbnail (and only that thumbnail) will be updated to be correct.
Does that make more sense?
PS: It is a shame there is no way to upload images here so I could show you without the extra step of going to an image hosting service
Lets take my Crop example. There is no way to use System Settings to add a shortcut for it because there is no menu item for it. There is a shortcut for it (
c), but it is modal. I have to be in editing mode for them to work. And there don’t seem to be shortcuts to take me from mode to mode.I have to know it is an “editing slider” (perhaps the tooltip for that icon needs a change?), and then that the first icon means crop. There is also no keyboard navigation between controls as far as I can tell, and yes I have keyboard navigation on in SystemSettings. This is an accessibility fail.
I am not even sure if the custom shortcuts app would help with most of these things. But too much of the ui has poor discoverability, I shouldn’t have to go running to the documentation to know if a feature is present. I shouldn’t have to roll over an icon to know what it means. As a disabled person, this stuff is important, and just like curb cuts they help everyone.
I am familiar with the custom shortcuts app, though mostly I use the builtin facility for anything with a menu item or the shortcuts app. Bu
While there is a limit to the number of keys on the keyboard, I really think everything is the goal one should strive for. But considering that most of the features of the app don’t even have a menu item for them, perhaps one could start there; then I could use System Settings. It also then exposes what the app can do.
