Nativescript Loading Images - nativescript

Question

Here is my scenario: On my main view I am loading a list of items. Each item has an imageURL property. I am binding an Image component to the ImageURL property. Everything works well, but the image takes an extra second or two to load during which time the Image component is collapsed. Once the image is loaded, the Image component is displayed properly. This creates an undesirable shift on the page as the image is rendered.
The same images are going to be rendered on 2 other views.
What is the best practice to handle this scenario? I tried loading the base 64 string instead of the image url, which worked, but it slowed down the loading of the initial view significantly.
How can I pre-fetch the images and reuse them as I navigate between the views? I was looking at the image-cache module which seems to be addressing the exact scenario, but the documentation is very vague and the only example I found (https://github.com/telerik/nativescript-sample-cuteness/blob/master/nativescript-sample-cuteness/app/reddit-app-view-model.js) did not really address the same scenario. If I understood the code correctly, this is more about the virtual scrolling. In my case, I will have only 2-3 items, so the scrolling is not really a concern.
I would appreciate any advise.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Have you tried this?
https://github.com/VideoSpike/nativescript-web-image-cache
You will likely want to use a community plugin for this. You can also take a look at this:
https://docs.nativescript.org/cookbook/ui/image-cache

Answer 2

So after some research I came up with a solution that works for me. Here is what I did:
When the app start I created a global variable that contained a list of observable objects
then I made the http call to get all the objects and load them into the global variable
In the view I displayed the image as (the image is part of a Repeater item template):
<Image loaded="imageLoaded" />
in the js file I handled the imageLoaded events as:
var imageSource = require("image-source");
function imageLoaded(args) {
var img = args.object;
var bc = img.bindingContext;
if (bc.Loaded) {
img.imageSource = bc.ImageSource;
} else {
imageSource.fromUrl(bc.ImageURL).then(function (iSource) {
img.imageSource = iSource;
bc.set('ImageSource', iSource);
bc.set('Loaded', true);
});
}
}
So, after the initial load I am saving the imageSource as part of the global variable and on every other page I am getting it from there with the fallback of loading it from the URL is the image source is not available for this item.
I know this may raise some concerns about the amount of memory I am using to store the images, but since in my case, I am talking about no more than 2-3 images, I thought that this approach would not cause any memory issues.
I would love to hear any feedback on how to make this approach more efficient or if there is a better approach altogether.

Answer 3

You could use the nativescript-fresco plugin-in. It is an {N} plugin that is wrapping the popular Fresco library for managing images on Android. The plugin exposes functionality like: setting fade-in length, placehdler images, error images (when download is unsuccessful), corner rounding, dinamic sizing via aspect ration etc. for the full list of the advanced attributes you can refer this section of the readme. Also the plugin exposes some useful events that you can use to add custom logic when images are being retrieved from remote source.
In order to use the plugin simply initialize it in the onLaunch event of the application and call the .initialize() function:
var application = require("application");
var fresco = require("nativescript-fresco");
if (application.android) {
application.onLaunch = function (intent) {
fresco.initialize();
};
}
after that simply place the FrescoDrawee somewhere in your page and set its imageUri:
<Page
xmlns="http://www.nativescript.org/tns.xsd"
xmlns:nativescript-fresco="nativescript-fresco">
<nativescript-fresco:FrescoDrawee width="250" height="250"
imageUri="<uri-to-a-photo-from-the-web-or-a-local-resource>"/>
</Page>