ThumbnailOverlayContent issues

[jupe]

Both bitnesses affected.

When in a thumbnail view with dimension overlay enabled, for img formats that require a shell extension eg heic/avif etc I get strange flashing of the dimensions on off when scrolling or moving the mouse, as well as thumbs completely disappearing sometimes (eg at end of gif below), and XY seems to be constantly working in the BG because it massively slows down, comparing thumbnail speed/scrolling etc in fresh, my main config is like 70%+ slower, eg.

tn.gif (257.93 KiB) Viewed 1865 times

When I tried to repro in fresh, at first I couldn't but instead I noticed that the dimensions shown are totally bogus for those filetypes ie they don't match the values shown in the HoverBox etc (eg below screenshot), so that helped me figure out the issue with the speed + wrong/disappearing dimensions must be custom ThumbsOverlayContent, not sure if its only these particular filetypes being misidentified as videos, or if this is just the penalty paid to use a template like this, but to me it seems like XY is repetitively trying to read the video template props for these images, even if it isn't actually displaying them, something definitely seems off.

Video filetypes alone seem to thumbnail fast though, as do normal jpg/png etc non-codec required images. Possibly the behavior might be different depending on codec used, but I am skeptical. FYI I have Thumbs cache OFF, but it doesn't seem to make a diff if ON, just moving the mouse around the pane seems to cause the properties to keep being read which leads to the flashing + disappearing thumbs.

2025-08-14_144732.png (49.88 KiB) Viewed 1865 times

Below is just a very basic combo template, mine had multi props, but even with just the below the issue is exhibited for me.

Code: Select all

 conf("ThumbsOverlayContent", '');	// default = wrong dimensions + fast
 conf("ThumbsOverlayContent", '<prop #image.dimensions>');	// correct dims + fast
 conf("ThumbsOverlayContent", '<prop #image.dimensions>|video:|<prop #1>');	// super slow disappearing dims etc

So to surmise, there are 2 issues, 1) by default in fresh the dimensions are incorrect, 2) the disappearing dimensions/thumbnails and the massive speed penalty of using a image/video combo template for these shell extension thumbnailed images.

[admin]

1) by default in fresh the dimensions are incorrect
Confirmed and fixed! Gosh, I wonder why nobody noted this before.

2) the disappearing dimensions/thumbnails
Could not reproduce. All smooth and fast here. (win8.1 and win11)

[jupe]

I thought that may happen.

You were definitely using a combo template like the last example I gave above, maybe on a faster pc u need to add extra vid props.

If you were it must depend on the codecs used, I was skeptical it was that though because my heic and avif codecs are from separate sources.

[admin]

Video props are only retrieved for video extensions. Can't see why there should be slowness.

[jupe]

OK, I had another look at it, and yes I initially misdiagnosed it, the vid template isn't responsible, just having both a custom template and this enabled:

Configuration | General | Menus, Mouse, Usability | Usability | Highlight hovered items

But if you were testing in fresh, that would have been enabled so I would have thought you would have been able to repro it if you tested a custom template, so maybe it is still codec dependent too, anyway for me these things are requirements to repro:

[x] Highlight hovered items (HHO)

[x] custom overlay template enabled, (default dimensions overlay shows no issue)

With HHO disabled and custom template enabled on my PC it mostly seems ok, but is still a little slow for some reason only when selecting heic/heif/avif, but overall seems much better, whereas if I use default internal dimensions template I get no speed penalty.

Below is a gif (basically fresh; conf) which shows selecting between webp is instant, whereas there is a ~1s delay when going between heic/heif/avif only when custom template enabled, it also illustrates the diff behavior I get in 3 diff circumstances (look closely to see delay on selection, mouse presses are shown in yellow)

progress bar at top of gif, shown in this order:
default template + HHO disabled

fast changing selection between all formats + no flickering overlay

custom template + HHO disabled

fast between webp + slow between heic/heif/avif + no flickering overlay

custom template + HHO enabled

slow + flickering overlay only on heic/heif/avif, webp etc are ok

tn.gif (1.76 MiB) Viewed 1815 times

Above gif is from x64, below instead is using x86 and you can more easily see that the whole overlay flashes upon selection, so it looks to me like the whole thumb or overlay is being redrawn at this time, maybe even custom props re-read?, which mustn't happen unless custom overlay is enabled for some reason, since there is no delay in that case. HHO is disabled in below gif.

Video_2025-08-15_112925.gif (2.03 MiB) Viewed 1807 times

[admin]

Highlight hovered items is always enabled for me. Which exact custom template did you use for your last example, or doesn't this matter at all (is it even slow with a hard-coded template without any variables?)?

[jupe]

Oh I thought the template shown in my last posts 1st gif, and the overlays demoed the template I was using, but the dialog does go past a little fast,

conf("ThumbsOverlayContent", '<prop #164>');

I was only using that though so I could hide the captions and still show filetype for you. Both issues are present for me with seemingly any props, special/shell/numbered etc., but not with default dimensions,/caption overlay/caption+dimensions, or even hardcoded plain text custom template, which all also make selection fast between heic etc, and no flickering even with HHO enabled.

I do know when querying these filetypes for properties they are noticeably slower than say jpg on my pc, just strange to me that just selection seemingly causes a prop query, or maybe the redraw does when the selection color is drawn. FYI I have all infotips/hoverbox/statusbar disabled during testing

I remember there were some bizarre slowness for only some users when you reduced overlay font size by a relative percentage, maybe it is something like that at my dpi, who knows, anyway if it is only me affected by this behavior, and since I now discovered how to mitigate it, you can just leave it if you see no reason for it.

[admin]

Both issues are present for me with seemingly any props, special/shell/numbered etc., but not with default dimensions,/caption overlay/caption+dimensions, or even hardcoded plain text custom template, which all also make selection fast between heic etc, and no flickering even with HHO enabled.

This clearly points to the retrieval of the properties, doesn't it? For some reason, the property handler for those file types is extremely slow on your system. You can verify this by selecting some of those properties in the file info tip. The file info tip should then take noticeably longer to show.