Version: (using KDE KDE 3.5.5) Installed from: Debian stable Packages To make the light-table feel faster it should first load the reduced image and then (in a background thread) the full image. Once that is loaded the reduced image is replaced. Remark: Marcel already provided a patch for this. Things are, however, a bit tricky, because the zoom levels are different for reduced size vs. full image. Suggestion for this: the only relevant (for the user) image size is the actual one. Reduced image sizes are an implementation detail. Therefore also zoom levels given with respect to the reduced image size are, in my opinion, useless. Thus (for example) a 100% display should show the same region, regardless of preview or full image. (Of course, 100% for the reduced image would not look good - though until one has zoomed in, the full image will be displayed soon). Technically one could use a scale factor (which is 1.0 for the full image, and <1, for the reduced image, corresponding to the ratio reduced/full) whose inverse is used as multiplier for the slider values etc. Note: this delayed loading would also be useful for the AlbumGUI preview mode (F3) and also for the image editor itself (of course also including showfoto).
Just for completeness (and that the credits are attributed correctly): This goes back to the suggestion by Frank in #16 of http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140131 and seems to be an approach also taken by other applications.
*** Bug 223618 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I would like to have this feature in the view mode too, not only in light table
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