Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically? (Read 3191 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

When I am using foobar, the album covers only load when they are displayed on the window. The rest do not load until then, and it takes several seconds, maybe even a minute, for all of the album covers in the window to load. Is there a way to fix this so that all of the album covers load at once? It's important to me, because I find the album I want to listen to by it's album cover. It's unthinkable to me to have an album I really love in my foobar without an album cover, yet this problem is persistent. I have a lot of albums, so waiting for them all to load is not ideal.

 

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #1
It's hard to say anything useful without knowing more about how you've set up foobar2000 to view your album covers. Perhaps a screenshot would help.

I know that I had issues in the past with the lag in viewing covers while scrolling using the Facets plugin. I solved it by moving all of the covers to a folder on an SSD and adjusting the path in Preferences > Display > Album Art.
That's so plausible, I can't believe it.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #2
It's hard to say anything useful without knowing more about how you've set up foobar2000 to view your album covers. Perhaps a screenshot would help.

I know that I had issues in the past with the lag in viewing covers while scrolling using the Facets plugin. I solved it by moving all of the covers to a folder on an SSD and adjusting the path in Preferences > Display > Album Art.
I somehow tagged the album with the picture file, I don't have it loading album covers from jpg images in the folder. I think it might be because of this that the album covers take so long to appear.



I don't know why this appears so small. Here's the link to the full size picture http://i.imgur.com/Z8xVfMD.png

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #3
That viewer looks like Facets to me (correct me if I'm wrong), and the behavior I remember suggested that Facets loads covers as needed -- I could hear my HD grinding as I scrolled through my albums. It's been quite some time since Facets was updated, so I doubt we'll see any further optimization.

What is the resolution of the jpg's? I'm not embedding my covers, so I can't speak from experience, but it's logical that large images would load much more slowly, especially if the music files are on a slow HD. If you can't offload the covers to a faster drive, perhaps smaller images would help. You could experiment with a few files (make backups first, of course).
That's so plausible, I can't believe it.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #4
That viewer looks like Facets to me (correct me if I'm wrong), and the behavior I remember suggested that Facets loads covers as needed -- I could hear my HD grinding as I scrolled through my albums. It's been quite some time since Facets was updated, so I doubt we'll see any further optimization.

What is the resolution of the jpg's? I'm not embedding my covers, so I can't speak from experience, but it's logical that large images would load much more slowly, especially if the music files are on a slow HD. If you can't offload the covers to a faster drive, perhaps smaller images would help. You could experiment with a few files (make backups first, of course).
I have such a tremendous amount of files, there's no way I'm ever going in and putting small files in them. I mean, you have no idea how many songs I have, it's intense and enormous. Most of them are off of the folder monitoring feature and in the playlists on the side. It would be cool if there were a way to make the images load altogether instead of as needed. The images are all different sizes btw, there's no uniformity to it at all.

I tried winamp but it seems to have the same problem. I've been using foobar for so long though, it would be weird to switch over to winamp. It doesn't look like that would be an option at this point though.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #5
Your screenshot shows +7000 albums. With that amount I guess you can expect there  to be speed issues. That being said, you could try graphical browser, it doesn't at all have the same functionality as facets has but if it's only album cover viewing you need then graphical browser can be an option. There's also a jscript graphical browser by Br3tt but again, it's only for album art viewing/selecting, not the same as facets. The jscript one requires far less setup than graphical browser if you can't find a ready hand script and need to make your own.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #6
Still having this problem a year later, if anyone knows a solution at this point.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #7
To make sure the images load from the external jpeg files rather than being extracted from the music tracks, check this config setting:
Preferences->Advanced->Display->Album art->Embedded vs external
and make sure the "Prefer external" is checked.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #8
I'm not sure if it's made clear but the loading and scaling and caching of album art is the job of whatever component is displaying the art for you. The core foobar2000 just gives components the data when they ask it. I fear you won't get any such changes to Facets as it hasn't been updated in a long time.

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #9
I'm not sure if it's made clear but the loading and scaling and caching of album art is the job of whatever component is displaying the art for you. The core foobar2000 just gives components the data when they ask it. I fear you won't get any such changes to Facets as it hasn't been updated in a long time.
Is there a program on foobar which loads covers automatically besides facets?

Re: Is there a way to make all the album covers load automatically?

Reply #10
There are multiple components that load cover art. Basically any playlist viewer, EsPlaylist, ElPlaylist, Facets, ColumnsUI's playlist, they all load the cover art and they all have their own cache in memory. However none of them have an on-disk cache, so whenever you restart foobar, the cache will have to be rebuilt again. And, most likely, whenever you change playlist their caches would be flushed.

The only exception I know of is the JS Smooth series of scripts included in spider monkey panel. They have an on-disk cache in the foobar profile folder that stores the resized album art. I believe that would work for your purpose. JS Smooth Browser works similarly to facets in your screenshot.