The 5×10 metadata batching only staggered the cheap layer (JSON);
thumbnails load as independent <img> requests and clustered, so tiles
"popped in together" after a wait. Two changes:
- GalleryItem reveals each tile when ITS OWN thumbnail fires @load (with
an onMounted complete-check for cached thumbs), playing a showcase-style
flip-up entrance. Tiles now cascade in natural load order instead of all
at once. Honors prefers-reduced-motion.
- gallery store does ONE initial fetch (limit=50) instead of 10 serial
/scroll round-trips. Fewer RTTs, faster first paint; the reveal-on-load
is what makes appearance progressive now. Infinite scroll pulls 25/trigger.
Tests: GalleryItem gains is-loaded only after @load; loadInitial issues
exactly one scroll request at the initial limit.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
