Does this load images as the table is scrolling? Or only loads onscreen images when the scrolling stops? Do I have any control over which behavior I want?
Currently, it loads the onscreen images when the scrolling stops (which is a non-aggressive loading behavior). If you wish to be more aggressive about loading the images, i.e. loads the images when the scrolling starts to decelerate, or loads the images as soon as the table scrolls (very aggressive), you can fine control the loading behavior via the loadInBackground method in PFImageView (the PFTableViewCell has a PFImageView as its imageView property).
In designing the API, I debated whether I should introduce a property that lets developer specify a loading behavior from a default set. I chose not to expose it for now and wait for some feedback; if this is a commonly asked feature, I can always introduce it later. I find, in the personal apps I build, this loading behavior is sufficient for 90% of them. Would love to hear others' feedback, though.
Cool, thanks for the info, makes sense. I also prefer to do non-aggressive loading as a dev, but for some of my apps I got lots of feedback from users that loading images that way "felt slow and laggy" since they are used to aggressive loading in other apps...
Exactly. To be aggressive in loading is kind of risky since doing it poorly can lead to a non-responsive behavior in the app. App developers can always choose to be more aggressive if the default behavior is not aggressive enough, but if the framework chooses to be overly aggressive, it prohibits some apps from adopting the framework.
