Again, can't reply in a locked topic. I said:
Songs with no cover art show the "Image (small thumbnail)" column just like the "Image (small icon)" column. The small thumbnail should be blank just like the "Image (large thumbnail)" is since there is no cover art.
Got a By Design from Matt.
Replied:
By design doesn't make sense to me. When the "Image (small icon)" came into existence, I added it as a column next to "Image (small thumbnail)". Hence when there's no cover art I see 2 identical columns. If I have a column called "Image (small thumbnail)", that doesn't sound like I'm going to see an icon too. Sounds like I might as well just remove that alexicon.
Larry replied:
The "Image (small icon)" column is based on the previous "Alexicons" column, which is a single column showing you either album art, or an icon if no art is present. It's designed to be used by itself, so that a single column can be used and display "something" for every file -- i.e. for people that liked the previous layout, they can still achieve it with this column. It really isn't designed to be used along with other image columns.
You might want to try turning off the "small icon" column and instead use the "large icon" column followed by the "small icon" column. this way, you'll see larger art (unless the album only has one track) followed by the "icon" showing what type of file it is. I personally find this to be an excellent display, and others reported similar reactions.
My reply finally:
The value of the "Image (small icon)" to me at least is in Playing Now when I can see at a glance in the details which song is the current one playing since it has a different icon. I have tried the large thumbnail and it's okay except say you're viewing an album that has 20 tracks and your details list only shows 10 songs. If you're at the bottom of the details for that album you don't see the cover, just a big blank space. Widening the column doesn't grow the cover any larger so that's why I like the small cover.
I guess I can tolerate the way it works but I think what bothers me the most is that it is called "Image (small thumbnail)" and the other called "Image (large thumbnail)". Seems like consistent fields to me but they don't act consistently.
It should probably be called, if it's going to stay the same as it works now, "Image (small thumbnail/icon)". Otherwise other people are going to think it's a bug too.