Thumbnail Snafu! Different thumbnails for every NI platform

Lotto
Lotto Member Posts: 2 Newcomer
in Komplete Kontrol

There is a different set of thumbnails for Kontakt, Komplete Kontrol, and Native Access. This is incredibly frustrating. Also, still have the issue of Komplete Kontrol not seeing libraries registered in Kontakt.

The whole ecosystem needs a rework from the ground up. I'm tired of having things installed all over my system, thumbnail dice rolls, and interface resolution issues.

How do I get this to match. What files do I have to go hunting for to delete and allow it to rebuild which still won't be correct? Why can't there be ONE folder with the thumbnails for every product. Maybe a folder in the Pictures folder where pictures go.

Look, windows chose to have the Documents folder be no longer for documents, to have three appdata folders, a ProgramData folder, and Common Files folder (split between Program Files and Program Files (x86), and random other places for preferences and resources to be stored in. It isn't entirely NI's fault, but something seriously needs to be done.

image_2025-04-08_233852548.png

Not even lower resolution only… Completely different thumbnails… like Komplete Kontrol only gets the third class citizen ones. Kontakt gets second class citizen. Native Access gets third class but a high resolution version. So weird. Unacceptable… its 2025.

Answers

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Administrator, Customer Care Posts: 14,275 admin
    edited April 9

    I will forward your comments regarding thumbnails lack of homogeneity.

    Regarding the mismatch between Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol products:

    Kontakt will only show Kontakt libraries.

    Komplete Kontrol will show NI products and NKS products. If some third party Kontakt libraries do not have NKS implementation, the thumbnails and presets will not show in Komplete Kontrol. You would need to open these non NKS libraries in Kontakt, inside Komplete Kontrol and save them as Komplete Kontrol user presets.

    Yes, our products do leave a lot of files scattered among systems, there is room for improvement here. The ecosystem is now almost 30 years old and has been through changes onver the years. Hopefully one day we'll be able to have only the best of both worlds, old and new.

  • Lotto
    Lotto Member Posts: 2 Newcomer

    Thanks for your honest reply.
    I get how these things happen and the ecosystem being almost 30 years old is both impressive and obviously challenging. People leave, things get bolted on a codebase that the person who maintained it is no longer there. I totally get it.

    As far as the libraries go… These are all kontakt libraries. I can get them to show up by opening kontakt inside of komplete kontrol as expected. Also, the classic view shows everything with the banner art though that was easy enough to place a wallpaper.png inside the install directory. NKS though not so much. I think the default browser should be the NKS view with a simple right click > change/update thumbnail option. If the library isn't NKS kompatible (i see what i did there) then maybe there can be some icon that shows that or an option to show only NKS compatible libraries / vice versa.

    I like using my NI S49 mk2 and I like being able to have a visual representation of all the libraries I have in a very creative motivating way. Spending time troubleshooting all of this and also seeing blank folders, low resolution images, images without the title (like Analog Dreams example in thumbnail), etc… Also, as an aside flaying library creators to gain access to nicnt / official installer options has also got to be fixed. These are not second class libraries just because they are not paying for them to be promoted. They should show up the same as any.. give them a 3rd party like icon if you want, but make everyone feel like their contributions to the ecosystem are welcomed. After all, it is how the platform has remained so prominent for almost 30 years. But with UVI on the horizon with some incredible libraries, not to mention Halion… well… there is ever increasing reason to get this all sorted.

    Until things are revamped… a tool to adjust the NKS browser including for changing thumbnails for registered libraries should be a priority. It would go a long way at showing the community that there is an understanding of where things are at and the attempt to alleviate some pain points in the meantime.

  • Kymeia
    Kymeia NKS User Library Mod Posts: 5,621 mod
    edited April 10

    Actually the explanation and solution is much simpler. If you look in the NI image resources folder you can see very clearly that Kontakt 8 and Komplete Kontrol are using different image resources from the same folder. For NSK2 libraries Kontakt 8 is now using NKS2_software_tile.webp, but Komplete Kontrol is still defaulting to the lower res VB_artwork.png thumbnail it has used since it was first developed. It would be nice if KK could be updated to also use the higher res NKS2 images by default.

    The workaround if you really want them to be consistent is if you delete the NKS2_software_tile.webp, Kontakt then reverts to using the VB_artwork.png, it has to as this is still the default for non NKS2 libraries. Of course this means using a lower res image so it's a tradeoff between consistency and appearance at the moment. Up to you.

    The other option that occurs to me would be to use the NKS2_software_tile.webp to make a VB_artwork.png for Komplete Kontrol so the same image is used for both. Just a case of resizing it really and resaving with a new name/format

    image.png

    As to Native Access I guess it keeps its images resources somewhere else

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Administrator, Customer Care Posts: 14,275 admin
    edited April 11

    @Kymeia @Lotto You are right. I checked with the involved teams. The Komplete Kontrol browser needs an update, it will get the same browser update Kontakt 8 had recenly. The next Komplete Kontrol update should bring thumbnails equality. No ETA yet for this update but it's definitely on it's way.

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