(long) Transparent IDE elements and other problems

[Scott Rossi]

On 3/27/04 12:56 AM, "Frank Leahy" <frank at backtalk.com> wrote:

> the reason I don't use the hack you suggest -- it's
> possible to have dozens if not hundreds of images on the screen at the
> same time, and if I want to support drag and drop to reorder images,
> and drag and drop of images into the album (both of which I do support)
> I need to show all images otherwise those features don't work.

Perhaps the built-in drag and drop method may not, but I think you might be
able to script your own.  There's no reason why you couldn't implement a
draggable object that "hovers" at the mouseLoc as the thumbnails are
scrolled in and out of view.


> Anyway, the biggest problem I've come across so far is that a group can
> be at most 32000 pixels high, which effectively limits my "slides plus
> EXIF" template to 137 templates stacked vertically.  Really there's no
> reason RunRev shouldn't be able to support multi-thousands of images on
> screen simultaneously so that one need not resort to hokey hacks to
> display large amounts of data.

Well, what you call a "hokey hack" was a suggestion offered to possibly add
a bit of efficiency to your app.  If your app is working well for you, then
by all means, you should obviously continue what you are doing.

And I agree with your other comments that Rev "should" be able to handle
thousands of images.  This would be a testament to Rev's capabilities.  But
perhaps a comparison to iPhoto is a bit optimistic.  You have more of a
connection to Apple than I, so I expect you know more in this area, but I
would *expect* that Rev, which was designed to be development platform for
all manner of application, would have a tough time achieving the same
performance of an app like iPhoto which is designed exclusively for photo
management and display.

In any event, here are a few other "hokey hacks" you might consider to get
around the current group size limitation (what can I say, I'm a masochist).
Divide up your thumbnails across multiple groups and show/hide/position
these as needed when scrolling through the current group.  Alternatively,
since you can effectively display the contents of one stack within another,
you could divide up your thumbnails across multiple stacks and populate a
"display" stack with the group content of "album" stacks.  Perhaps one of
these "hacks" might work until Rev is able to support larger groups.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Development & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com