Author Topic: ThumbsPlus: Great app, but it could stand to lose weight  (Read 5221 times)

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stevebesc

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Hi, Cerious!

  Love your ThumsPlus Pro V8, and I'm considering buying it.  I've followed the program through its various incarnations over the years (I bought it once, years ago, and I'm sure I've lost the reg. key, so I won't even try asking for a free upgrade).  Anyway, I've tried V.8 Pro, and I'd like to ask a quick question or two before buying if I may...
  For me, the chief attraction of the app is its editing functions.
 I definitely do not want or need the database functions. Frankly, it's a mystery to me why they are still included, given the speed and physical memory specs of today's typical home systems. Even though it seems to be designed to do so, I really don't need the app to store a huge, exhaustive thumbnail snapshot of all the
thousands of images on my system between editing sessions, since I
rarely work with more than a few images in one or two directories
at a time, and my system specs are more than adequate for generating thumbnails on the fly when start a session.  So, the questions are these:

1. Is Pro V. 8 the right version for me, or is there a more
lightweight version that leaves out the database bloat but retains
the very useful batch editing capabilities?

2. Is there a way to just switch off the persistent database
thumbnail storage in V. 8 and force the app to read the directory
structure and generate thumbnails on the fly when I point it at a
particular directory?

3. I noticed as I used the app that it retains obsolte directory
references even after i've deleted directories from the system.  This is bizarre.
The program seems to assume that users' systems are more static
than they in fact are.  I have lots of USB sattelite drives and
other virtual devices that I'm constantly mouting, unmounting, hot-swapping....another reason not to try to maintain a big, static database.  Do you have a leaner, more efficient version of your app?

Thanks alot for your time in answering my questions....
cheers

hfremuth

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How to keep the database clear of 'Orphans'
« Reply #1 on: 2011-05-27 09:38:38 »
>   For me, the chief attraction of the app is its editing functions.
>  I definitely do not want or need the database functions. Frankly, it's a mystery to me why they are still included...
Well ThumbsPlus is an image management solution for your pictures (and movies and PDF files...). What does that mean in real life? It is supposed to (1) help you organize your stuff and, to a lesser extend, (2) touch them up a bit - pretty much in that order.

> 1. Is Pro V. 8 the right version for me, or is there a more
> lightweight version that leaves out the database bloat but retains
> the very useful batch editing capabilities?

ThumbsPlus v7 is still a very capable solution, and there are mostly minor improvements in the area of editing in v8. Nevertheless, v8 has a vastly refreshed code base that will work on more systems, with the most up-to-date functionality. Please take look at the [link=http://www.cerious.com/release_notes8sp1.shtml#general]v8 Release Notes[/link] to see all the improvements that happened in v8.

> 2. Is there a way to just switch off the persistent database
> thumbnail storage in V. 8 and force the app to read the directory
> structure and generate thumbnails on the fly when I point it at a
> particular directory?
No, not really - this is a core feature since v2. But to be honest: creating Thumbnails on-the-fly costs you the same time as creating it once and then load that folder the second time in a split second. There is NO performance penalty for making Thumbnails!

> 3. I noticed as I used the app that it retains obsolte directory
> references even after i've deleted directories from the system.  This is bizarre.
> The program seems to assume that users' systems are more static
> than they in fact are.  I have lots of USB sattelite drives and
It's in the nature of ThumbsPlus to gobble everything up and make Thumbnails - until you decide to dump it. ThumbsPlus calls Thumbnails of files that are no longer available Orphans. There are a number of ways to get rid of them, the best way is to start by adjusting the base setting under preferences (F9):

Set the check box so that orphans are not shown and also that they are automatically removed. If you already have a bunch of orphans (i.e., on deleted folders, removable volumes such as USB sticks or CDs) that show on your folder tree, use the context menu to get read of them:


This way, you can keep your ThumbsPlus database small and squeaky clean, without any orphans.

DaFueg

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ThumbsPlus: Great app, but it could stand to lose weight
« Reply #2 on: 2011-05-27 09:53:27 »
> Hi, Cerious!
>
>   Love your ThumsPlus Pro V8, and I'm considering buying it.  I've followed the program through its various incarnations over the years (I bought it once, years ago, and I'm sure I've lost the reg. key, so I won't even try asking for a free upgrade).  Anyway, I've tried V.8 Pro, and I'd like to ask a quick question or two before buying if I may...
>   For me, the chief attraction of the app is its editing functions.
>  I definitely do not want or need the database functions. Frankly, it's a mystery to me why they are still included, given the speed and physical memory specs of today's typical home systems. Even though it seems to be designed to do so, I really don't need the app to store a huge, exhaustive thumbnail snapshot of all the
> thousands of images on my system between editing sessions, since I
> rarely work with more than a few images in one or two directories
> at a time, and my system specs are more than adequate for generating thumbnails on the fly when start a session.  So, the questions are these:
>
> 1. Is Pro V. 8 the right version for me, or is there a more
> lightweight version that leaves out the database bloat but retains
> the very useful batch editing capabilities?
>
> 2. Is there a way to just switch off the persistent database
> thumbnail storage in V. 8 and force the app to read the directory
> structure and generate thumbnails on the fly when I point it at a
> particular directory?
>
> 3. I noticed as I used the app that it retains obsolte directory
> references even after i've deleted directories from the system.  This is bizarre.
> The program seems to assume that users' systems are more static
> than they in fact are.  I have lots of USB sattelite drives and
> other virtual devices that I'm constantly mouting, unmounting, hot-swapping....another reason not to try to maintain a big, static database.  Do you have a leaner, more efficient version of your app?
>
> Thanks alot for your time in answering my questions....
> cheers


I would say then you are using the WRONG type of program... what you really want is simply an image editor/viewer - something akin to Bridge and Photoshop.  The main benefit of a DAM application IS its database which is used for fast searching, tagging, editing, etc...  if you don't have a catalog,, how quickly do you locate a: RED FLOWER taken with a 90MM lens in JUNE 2010?  The catalog will enable you to quickly and easily search its database to locate this.... if you are not storing this info, then the program would need to pour through your images which takes a seriuosly long time - even on modern systems.  Also, a good DAM program will allow you to email images, create web galleries, slideshows, edit images, store versions, complex searches, auto-sync XMP, perform scripting,, renaming, etc...
 
Idimager allows you to read your external media and create previews in the database (another reason for you to use a catalog).  Then, the external media is still available for preview and search capabilities even without the original media...

stevebesc

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How to keep the database clear of 'Orphans'
« Reply #3 on: 2011-05-27 19:16:23 »
Great!  Thanks for the reply.  Your solution is probably adequate for me, and I'll go ahead and register my copy of TP V.8.  I'm only in the Win world temporarily, while I revive my Linux system which was destroyed by an errant PSU.  When that box is back up, I'll go back to using what I consider to be a near-perfect editing app: Gthumb for Gnome.  If this thing had ThumbsPlus' editing capabilities, it would be absolutely perfect.
--Thanks again!

stevebesc

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ThumbsPlus: Great app, but it could stand to lose weight
« Reply #4 on: 2011-05-27 19:20:00 »
Ah...great ideas.  Thanks for the reply.  As I mentioned in a reply above, I moved over to ThumsPlus when my Linux box went down and I was forced to use my Windows gaming platform for image editing.  In the Linux world, Gthumb is a nice, lightweight editor along the lines of what you're describing, and probably closer to my ideal.  hm...this has me wondering....better check to see if Gthumb has a Windows build...
Thanks.

mschnell

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How to keep the database clear of 'Orphans'
« Reply #5 on: 2011-06-02 03:55:10 »
> I'm only in the Win world temporarily, while I revive my Linux system which was destroyed by an errant PSU. When that box is back up, I'll go back to using what I consider to be a near-perfect editing app: Gthumb for Gnome. If this thing had ThumbsPlus' editing capabilities, it would be absolutely perfect.

Similar here. I would love to switch all our PCs to Linux; and maintaining Linux boxes is not hard for me at all, as I already do run some of them.

TP is the only application that is not available in a Linux version, but it's functionality and the huge amount of information stored in it's database is absolutely mission critical here, so we need to run Windows on some boxes.

I do hope for a future Linux version of TP (and of course will help testing it), but obviously before Cerious considering this, TP8 needs to get more perfect.

So I suppose I will switch to TP8 (and a Postgres database running on the Linux server box) some day soon.

-Michael