I don't know how it parses the template exactly... but basicly it goes from top to bottom, when it encounters a tag it does something with it ... lets say.. start-page.. it sees "covers" so it starts generating covers.. then on to the next tag etc etc..

so far no problem here, and it goes rather fast too.. then follows groups pages.. say 3 pages with tiny thumbs...

Now I have a start page with 6 new items (covers at 70px) and 3 group pages (covers at 30px).... in about a minute or two, maybe three

then the album pages (covers at 175px).. here starts the problem... because it does (as it looks) nothing for a long time before it starts putting out the covers.. like half an hour or so...

If I make a simple template like

::start/web
<!--[album]-->
<!--[if(cover)]--><!--[cover(175)/]--><!--[/if]-->
<!--[/album]-->

it puts out all the covers immediately at a very decent pace, even if I would repeat that line with the different sizes.

Hopes this helps a bit. Oh, and we are talking about 290 albums here.

anywho... I have created a work-around for it .. ;D
In my previous templates I used a custom tag to store the CDDB number, and this one comes in handy again

At the start of my template it says
<!--[album(top,10,dateadded)]-->
<!--[if(cover)]--><!--[cover(30)/]--><!--[/if]-->
<!--[if(cover)]--><!--[cover(70)/]--><!--[/if]-->
<!--[if(cover)]--><!--[cover(175)/]--><!--[/if]-->
<!--[/album]-->

Then everywhere else it says
<img src="covers/<!--[custom1/]-->">

it only puts out the 10 newest covers every time I start an export.. and only need to export the covers once, unless I change the size ofcourse :P

and that brings up another point.... I can export the CDDB number in a text file, but not in a HTML export :'(
or at least not with [CDDB] or [CDDBID] or [CDDB_ID]

well, at least I hope I entertained everyone with my lengthy post ;D

Cherio!