Total Commander

Back to Android after a while, and of course Total Commander along with the LAN plugin is one of the first things to install. My question now is - is there any way to "browse" photos on a LAN share? That is, not having to open each photo separately, but rather see all thumbnails in a folder.

No, unfortunately not - Total Commander would have to download all the photos just to display a preview. While this would be OK on a local network, it would cause a lot of traffic via a mobile VPN connection...

Hi, möchte das Thema noch Mal ansprechen.
Ich glaube es geht um das "Weiterblättern" in der BetrachterApp in einem Lan-Fotoverzeichnis.
Das geht einfach nicht. Jedes Bild muss einzeln angewählt werden und jedes Mal kommt die Abfrage "Herunterladen + Öffnen".
Das ist z.B. zum schnellen "Durchsehen" von Webcam-Aufnahmen ungeeignet.
Leider muss ich dafür immer noch auf X-plore ausweichen.
Diese Funktionalität wäre sehr wünschenswert.
Gruß Grewi

Leider ginge das nur mit einem in Total Commander eingebauten Bildbetrachter. Bei xplore geht es auch nur mit dessem eigenen Betrachter.

What's the alternative for browsing photos on a (local, LAN) computer/drive from an Android device then? X-plore?

On iOS devices, I can do this with FileBrowser and FileHub. They display thumbnails "on the go" - I guess it only downloads photos for the thumbnails that are currently in view. It takes a second when you scroll on to display the next set, but better than nothing.

ghisler(Author) wrote: 2019-08-26, 13:17 UTC No, unfortunately not - Total Commander would have to download all the photos just to display a preview. While this would be OK on a local network, it would cause a lot of traffic via a mobile VPN connection...

Hi,

I really would like to have this feature.

If it's ok on a local network, so you could either add an option to enable it per share or have a setting (like other apps) to only enable download when connected to LAN.
Additionally, AFAIK, most image formats contain a small sized preivew of the image, to speed up image browsers showing a preview picture, so you don't have to download the whole file.

BR
tobbes76

tobbes76 wrote: 2020-07-17, 08:34 UTC most image formats contain a small sized preivew of the image, to speed up image browsers showing a preview picture, so you don't have to download the whole file.

Wrong. Some formats allow adding preview, but many images don't contain it. What is more, some image viewers have problems with incomplete pictures. For example, Explorer view used by default in TC in most cases may display blank in such cases.

I could add it just for JPG files - here I could do the parsing myself and extract just the preview image, and only if it's stored near the start of the file. Would this help?

ghisler(Author) wrote: 2020-07-20, 07:42 UTCI could add it just for JPG files

That would be nice.

ghisler(Author) wrote: 2020-07-20, 07:42 UTConly if it's stored near the start of the file.

Sure. Some large files contain megabytes of Photoshop actions and a small image after those xml metadata.

ghisler(Author) wrote: 2020-07-20, 07:42 UTC I could add it just for JPG files - here I could do the parsing myself and extract just the preview image, and only if it's stored near the start of the file. Would this help?

Sure.
Thanks for considering.

I'm wondering if there isn't a free image library that already provides parsing arbitrary images.

But still, I think the LAN plugin is mostly used to view files in the local network, and therefore I don't see a problem downloading whole files, in case they don't contain a preview image.