Folder display and full screen horribly slow?

Question

I'm currently running on Windows 7, 64 bit.
I just upgraded from PSE 8 to 10 and had the first run automatically convert my catalog in the organizer. I've turned off all auto-analysis options. Other than being extremely annoyed that I no longer have the option to look at multiple folders at once in folder view -- which is something that almost makes me want to return the software, but it was a gift -- it takes over 30 seconds to switch to or start in folder view, and about the same amount of time to bring up the full screen preview.   Within folder view, switching from "3 stars and higher" back to "show all" takes 35 seconds, and even longer to restrict the view.
I know it's not my machine; limiting the view to 3 stars in thumbnail view takes less than a second, the same with selecting tags, show all, etc.  It's very snappy.
In a previous version, Elements 6 I think, I had a strange problem where having the printer set to our regular printer caused an issue like this, and the solution was to set the default to CutePDF printer or something like that. I tried that though and it didn't help. (I'll reboot and try again just in case).
In PSE 8, it's slow...but not this slow. Plus, I can use it for my main view, since I can see many folders at a time. I won't be able to do that anymore so I have to be able to go back and forth easily.
Has anyone else experienced this problem?? Any thoughts on what could be causing it?
Thanks,
Lisa

Answer 1

Inexcusable ? You should perhaps rather wonder how it is possible to select a dozen of photos on multiple criteria within seconds. There is no magic there, only the combination of a powerful tool : a relational database, sqlite, and the recording of data from the exif or from your tags. A complex structure and many indexes make this wonder possible. If the data is outside the database and can change... the wonder is no longer there. You are right in your hope of better structure, better indexes, better use of the organizer of the data included in the database.
Remember I stated earlier that I don't know of a way to do this in my favourite thumbnail view. I think such a feature would be useful when I am using external drives to transfer catalogs and files via backup and restore. Knowing if all pictures are on given disk or if a part of them is in another one is useful and may lead to different restore strategies. With the folder view, it is akward : you have to create a keyword and to show all subfolders including images  and apply the keyword to all. Believe me, it would be very easy to include a selection of the drive in the find menu, thumbnail view. That's why I cannot blame those who prefer the folder view, the thumbnail view and the find menu are neither satisfying for beginners nor for those accustomed to complex database queries including all operators such as XOR...
Perhaps inexcusable is a bit of a harsh word.  But I wrote enterprise-level software for 10 years and I know there is a lot going on underneath the hood, and "we should be grateful for what does work" doesn't hold water for me. I still maintain that releasing software when one of the core features became significantly less functional, to the point where it makes that feature unusable, is a very poor choice as far as the existing user base is concerned. (But yes, I also know the pressures that are put on the engineers that are creating the product, and that they are often not the ones that make the decisions about release dates and other things).
My knowledge of SQL is limited to about 4 sentences, but I do know software. If you have a user task that can happen in less than a second in one view of 30,000 photos and is taking 35 seconds in another view with 30 photos (because no matter what is underneath, what is important is what the user sees, and they took away my ability to see all of them, so "we have to do all this work on the whole tree is a weak excuse at best), that is a major defect, not a design trade-off.
You wrote, " If the data is outside the database and can change..."  but I still don't see how PSE is reacting to changing data underneath. I changed the data, and it doesn't react at all.  Are you saying that every time I restrict the file view, it checks the entire tree for changes and then doesn't actually act upon them? Also, this doesn't make sense to me, because if I hide many of my files the performance improves significantly -- that tells me it's not about the file structure of things not in my database, but about those in my database.  And if it is the icons that can change, well, the icons are worthless if the view isn't functional.
Just to be clear for whoever reads this later, I'm not concerned about a one-time cost per session of switching to folder view, though, it would be a lot cleaner if it gave me a progress bar instead of making my OS pop-up "Photoshop Organizer is not responding" boxes. I withdraw my comment about "view full screen" because I can see that there is a workaround, and that was in part user error (though partially also a design choice, since most of the effort of processing my files could be postponed until I was sitting and staring at the first 30, which is how most photo preview software handles it).
What I am most concerned about is the unusability of folder view for any sort of search or other operations (even stacking three photos in folder view takes *forever*).  How can that not be a defect? Not only that, folder view is buggy -- several times it shows me the wrong photos for a folder (says the folder is A but the pictures are from folder X) and right now, it's telling me I have no zero star photos in any of my directories, when I know I do. Then when I clicked Show All, it's not showing any of my pictures at all.   ("Show all" doesn't seem to work at all in folder view at all).
If it were a one-time-per-session delay (to account for scanning the file system for changes), but then I could reasonably go back and forth between 2-stars and no-stars and all, stack my photos, rename them, move them from one folder to another, re-arrange all my folders, then that would even be good enough. Take the hit of switching to folder view, and then stay in it for a while. Learn not to go back and forth.   But it doesn't make sense to have a view from which the user cannot perform any tasks on their photos.
I think I will reclaim the word, "inexcusable" here, sorry     I'll find ways to work around it, though.
Regarding the feature of selecting all files on a drive...I thought you had said there was a way from folder view to select all the files on a particular drive (i.e, something that it can do that thumbnail view cannot). Did I misunderstand? If that is true, how does one do it?
I'll end with my previous statement, that I'm available for free beta testing if any of the product engineers would like to work on this issue . I really am a huge fan of the software, which is why I'm so passionate about this topic.
Lisa