New docked image browser worse!?

The PL2 “docked” image browser (below the image) now allows to set the thumbnail size independent of the browser windows size. Therefore you can make the thumbnails larger than the (docked) image browser.

DxO, can you give me an example when this could be useful?

Besides this, I can’t imagine that many users want to use more than one row of thumbnails below the image.

Other users already criticized the lack of navigation buttons (e.g. first/last) in the new browser.

IMO, the requirements for the docked browser differ from the undocked browser. The height should be minimal because screens are wide but not that high and the image has higher priority.

For wide screens, the undocked browser (already available in earlier versions) is pretty useful.

Maybe I missed the benefit of the new “docked” browser. Otherwise I vote for bringing back the old browser with automatic thumbnail sizing!

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Well, I must say that I appreciate the fact that in the PhotoLibrary one can see at once several rows of images of a folder. This is something that was missing in PL_1 (in my opinion).
I am also used to see the “film strip” (Image browser) when I do the development or editing, as here in the module “Customize”.

But, there seems to be a problem with this film strip. When I work on an image, it happens that the photo in question, framed in blue, disappears, or rather that the strip moves to the right or left. A bug? Not very important, but I wanted to report it.

It drives me round the bend when using my laptop. It used to sit there below the edit area now I find my self fighting the thing. I have tried minimizing it then cant find how to get it back!

I know what you mean.
You have to click and drag in exactly the right place
There must be an easy way to offer the users. It makes you feel so foolish not being able to restore it and making your customers feel foolish can’t be a good thing?

you could do this even in DxO 11 by detaching the image browser.

Obetz, you have very clearly presented the shortcomings of the PL2 docked image browser and some members of this forum have expressed their frustrations with it as well. Would you consider creating a feature request so users can vote on the topic? Perhaps DxO staff could then merge this topic with the feature request.

@jmcsaky until now, I didn’t give any solution but only described what I dislike. Thatt’s not a feature request.

Writing “roll back the change” would describe my preference but this would be too easy for a feature request because other users might have different ideas about the “perfect” browser, and maybe DxO had a reason to change the browser.

I don’t even know whether my reply to @apaulus did address exactly what he meant.

If you want to create a well thought feature request from this discussion then do so and I will vote for it.

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If someone creates a feature request, maybe it could be like this:

"Do not mix grid view and filmstrip view into one view. Provide two buttons instead that allow the user to toggle between:

  1. A plain grid view, which is usefull for DAM topics like keyword assignment and searching.

  2. A plain film strip view, which is usefull for culling and comparing of images

Preserve selection while the user toggles between views."

In my opinion a film strip is not better to compare images than a grid. A strip only shows me a few images.

What is the difference between a grid and a film strip? A film strip is like a grid with one long line, no vertical scrolling. If there were backward/forward buttons in either view I think most people would be happy. I can’t check right now but if i remember correctly the left/right arrow keys could be used.

Dedicated buttons for two separate views allow the user to toggle between views in just one click or shortkey. Using drag and drop is a cumbersome activity, if you want to restore the grid/preview ratio exactly.

There are two uses cases, I use often:

  1. If I work with metadata, I want to see as many image thumbnails as possible, to assign keywords fast through multi selection, or to visually scan through search results. So I need a full grid, and no preview which consumes the grid’s screen space.

  2. In the second use case I either cull through the images one by one. Or I compare a small subset of different images, to pick the best of them, because they are nearly equal. For this use case I need a large preview area, which means there is only room for a filmstrip. If I have a single row grid, I prefer horizontal scrolling, because there is more horizontal space than vertical, which allows a more accurate navigation.

Because I often switch between use case 1) and 2), I do not want to drag drop forth and back.

You can position the strip in steps of one image but the grid only in full lines. IOW you have a finer selection of the images visible at once in the strip.

Consider the case that you want to jump back and forth between several images and they cross a line boundary in the grid. Then you have to scroll all the time.

The strip can be positioned to show the first image of the group at the leftmost position and you see the images of interest at once.

And, I see we’ve lost the navigation controls from the PL2.0 Image Browser - compared with the PL1.2 version;

DxO_PL12_ImageBrowser … PL v 1.2

DxO_PL20_ImageBrowser … PL v 2.0

… also the place-mark information (eg. 1/14 = Current focus is on image 1 of 14)

What was the point / purpose of these (so called) “improvements” ?!

John M

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Maybe because the code has been completely rewritten !?
All arrows keys are usable.
But yes, I understand your point of view.

Pascal

All arrows keys are usable.
But yes, I understand your point of view.

Any chance of making direction keys plus modifiers active in filmstrip mode? e.g. ctl+right-arrow jumps right 5 shots, ctl+alt+right-arrow jumps right 10 (or whatever key combinations and numbers of shots you find appropriate)

If you’ve alredy got OnHome and OnEnd handlers, I’d hope adding more handlers would be straightforward.

BTW, I much prefer keyboard shortcuts to onscreen controls. I find the dockable window quite useful on 2 monitors. Thanks!