jQuery media browser

Hi,

I am attempting to build out a visual jQuery based browser for thumbnailed assets grouped by the upload date of the asset. The backend part is fine, but I'm having a really hard time finding a workable visual solution that can handle (potentially) hundreds to thousands of assets smoothly. The display of the content is not an issue as it is being handled by a lightbox, I just need to figure out a way to actually display the thumbnails.

I've been trying to interface with this plugin but have been running into a lot of problems once it gets over 100 records, everything just becomes horribly unresponsive. Ideally I want to be able to build ajax into this for loading media as needed rather than a bulk get on page load. Does anyone know of a good plugin that can be leveraged to achieve this effect or at least provide a good user interface for browsing large amounts of content?

To clarify: I have properly generated thumbnails being made when an asset is uploaded, these are what are displayed on the page, and the full size image is only loaded in the lightbox when the thumbnail is clicked. I'm just trying to determine a good way to browse a large quantity of thumbnails sorted by upload date.

Yep, I'm generating actual scaled down thumbnail images not just trying to make them look smaller via css. The lightbox shows the full size imaage, but the thumbnail is only a max of 75x75px

fluid_chelsea 2009-07-30 13:48:11

If you're making a single ajax call to get all the images at once performance could go way down depending on the records you're returning. A lot of browsers don't render dynamic html as quickly as they should.I would consider a design that loads maybe 50 images at a time and loads more on a triggered event such as scrolling past a certain point in the lightbox, etc. You should see much better performance than in a single call.You could also have concurrency issues if the browser is trying to get all the page assets off the same domain. (e.g. mysite.com vs images.mysite.com)

Scott Fox 2009-07-30 13:56:56

That's what I'm trying to do. Right now it just returns an array of all the images from the server, but I'd like to be able to just return the first 20 or so, then load more as the user scrolls but I'm having a hard time finding a visually appealing plugin that supports that functionality.

fluid_chelsea 2009-07-30 13:58:53

It sounds like you might need to use a combination of plug-ins and some custom JavaScript to get exactly what you need. For some of my more complex lightbox situations I use the Thickbox plug-in and have it reference a separate page with the content on it. This plugin might help you get the scrolling effects you're looking for: http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/load-content-while-scrolling-with-jquery/

Scott Fox 2009-07-30 14:06:48

Yeah, I ended up rolling my own. Fortunately I got the go ahead from the client to ditch the unusable design in favour of a much nicer and easier to implement one :) Thanks for the suggestions though

fluid_chelsea 2009-07-30 19:42:01

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jQuery media browser

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