Suppose we have a decent numer of large images in a folder, like 900 12 MP RAWs. When you first open that folder, if you are sorting by Filename, you can start scrolling and previewing immediately as the thumbnails continue to render. I think this instant gratification is one of the major draws to PM. It was definitely the first thing I latched onto first time I ever saw the program.
However, if you are sorting by Capture Time, the browser effectively locks you out until the thumbnails are done rendering, at which point it re-orders the files, and then releases it to you to scroll/view... Without having any knowledge of the code, it's fairly logical for me to guess that this behavior occurs because the app is placing priority on completion of thumnail rendering before it will sort the EXIF capture times.
So far as feature request, I think it would be a very meaningful performance enhancement if, upon selecting Capture Time as the sort, that the app would shift priority to sorting the EXIF first, then after sorting the EXIF return the priority to rendering the thumbs, so that you could scroll while still rendering just as in Filename sort... In this manner, the annoying "lockout" delay would be eliminated.
Same idea could be applied to any sort criterion.
