« Amending File Browser width | Main | Text Wrap transparent backgrounds »
Cache and the File Browser
By Cari Jansen | April 24, 2003
Digitip 005 - Adobe Photoshop 7
When you view the image contents of a new folder using the File Browser, you must have experienced a delay in the viewing process at times. As you open a (new) folder, Photoshop looks “into” each file and extracts its metadata (file information) and a thumbnail (the preview).
If you opt to rotate thumbnails, the thumbnail information that was originally extracted will be updated accordingly.
This metadata and thumbnail information is kept in the …Application Support /Adobe/FileBrowser/Photoshop7 folder (Mac) [...Application Data /Adobe/FileBrowser/Photoshop7 for PC]. Although the filesizes of these documents are relatively small, the number of files can increase drastically if you happen to be viewing lots of different image folders.
Purge Cache
If at any stage you experience problems using the FileBrowser, you might consider cleaning out the cache by using the Purge Cache command from the File Browser fly-out menu.
The Index.dat file and possibly 2 files (metadata & thumbnail info) will remain.
After Purging the Cache each image folder opened will once again be indexed by the File Browser.
Export Cache
The “Export Cache” command can be used to export the metadata and thumbnail information for a folder. Regardless of whether the cache files have been created locally or not, the File Browser appears to look at the saved Cache files first, thereby speeding up the previewing process.
The “Export Cache” command stores a metadata file (AdobePS7.md0) and a thumbnail file (AdobePS7.tb0) in the images’ folder.
Why add these files?
(1) If you burn your images to CD for archiving purposes, the addition of these files will speed-up the previewing of the CD content by the File Browser at a later stage and on any computer .
(2) If a folder name is amended the File Browser will recreate the cache the next time the folder is viewed, unless the cache had been exported.
(3) One last usage could be for storage of image files on a server (access by various people from different workstations).
P.S. If you know of any other usages let me know, and I’ll add them to this page.