Request: Random Order Viewing

[Gordon Freeman]

Hi there!

I was looking for the best freeware picturebrowser in the world, and I probably found it .
But it lacks a little feature which is important to me: random order browsing.

I searched through this newsgroup and found, that it was already requested twice:

- Browsing through pictures in random order (but no slideshow) (Last Zolex posting)
- Keys in Slideshow? (crazytb posting)

but noone has ever answered positively to these requests?!
Well it would be exactly what I am looking for: ACDSee(tm)-like random browsing behaviour!

Can anyone please tell me, why those requests were neglected, not even commented? I would like to vote for them! Can anyone do this in xnView?

Thank you all in advance!

G.F.

[xnview]

But it lacks a little feature which is important to me: random order browsing.

Could you tell me where do you want random order? In view mode?

[Gordon Freeman]

Hello Pierre,

sorry for answering so late and thanks for picking up my question!

I thought about having the random order browsing in view mode (probably even full screen viewing only). Maybe the term "browsing" was a little misleading, sorry

The article at http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=65 describes it quite well (I made some of the wordings from the original post more clear in this semi-quote):

Here is how ACDSee works: Consider a Slide Show (Slide Show or simple View mode are equivalent, all functionality is equal in both modes) with "random order".

Space / backspace - next/previous image in "random" sequence. Example: the normal order of pictures is A, B, C, D. If pressing space you get e.g. the pictures D, A, C, B in this order, pressing backspace you will get them in order B, C, A, D.

If you could make "Space/Backspace" or any other combination of keys work like mentioned above, it would be a bliss . Any other navigational key is unaffected by this change and will work like normal, i.e. pageUp/Down or the cursor keys will still browse through the normal "sorted" order of the pictures.

Thank you in advance for considering it and thank you for such a fine program!!!



G.F.

[xnview]

If you could make "Space/Backspace" or any other combination of keys work like mentioned above, it would be a bliss . Any other navigational key is unaffected by this change and will work like normal, i.e. pageUp/Down or the cursor keys will still browse through the normal "sorted" order of the pictures.

Ok

[Dreamer]

If you could make "Space/Backspace" or any other combination of keys work like mentioned above, it would be a bliss . Any other navigational key is unaffected by this change and will work like normal, i.e. pageUp/Down or the cursor keys will still browse through the normal "sorted" order of the pictures.

Ok

I don't think, fixed keys "Space/Backspace" are the best for that, it would be confusing for some users, so I suggest this: Option to select keys for 'random viewing'...

Example:
( ) Use keys Page up and Page down for 'random viewing'
( ) Use keys Left and Right for 'random viewing'
( ) Use keys Space and Backspace for 'random viewing'
(o) Don't use any keys for 'random viewing'

There would be also another problem, if you go to previous image...
- you are on image1
- you go to image5 (with random key)
- you go to previous image
- now, you are on image4 or 1 ?

So my suggestion - one key (and toolbar button) - backspace with ability to change, for switching between last two images (even if random viewing is activated or if you go to last or first image):
( ) Use Backspace key for switching between last two images
( ) Use (...?) key for switching between last two images
(o) Don't use any key for switching between last two images

Of course, custom hotkeys for that would be best

[xnview]

If you could make "Space/Backspace" or any other combination of keys work like mentioned above, it would be a bliss . Any other navigational key is unaffected by this change and will work like normal, i.e. pageUp/Down or the cursor keys will still browse through the normal "sorted" order of the pictures.

You means in the slideshow, is it right?

[xnview]

Example:
( ) Use keys Page up and Page down for 'random viewing'
( ) Use keys Left and Right for 'random viewing'
( ) Use keys Space and Backspace for 'random viewing'
(o) Don't use any keys for 'random viewing'

So my suggestion - one key (and toolbar button) - backspace with ability to change, for switching between last two images (even if random viewing is activated or if you go to last or first image):
( ) Use Backspace key for switching between last two images
( ) Use (...?) key for switching between last two images
(o) Don't use any key for switching between last two images

Of course, custom hotkeys for that would be best

Perhaps too complicated?

There would be also another problem, if you go to previous image...
- you are on image1
- you go to image5 (with random key)
- you go to previous image
- now, you are on image4 or 1 ?

If you use the previous key back, so you are on image1, if you use pageDown you are on image4

[helmut]

... I don't think, fixed keys "Space/Backspace" are the best for that, it would be confusing for some users, so I suggest this: Option to select keys for 'random viewing'...

Example:
( ) Use keys Page up and Page down for 'random viewing'
( ) Use keys Left and Right for 'random viewing'
( ) Use keys Space and Backspace for 'random viewing'
(o) Don't use any keys for 'random viewing'

There would be also another problem, if you go to previous image...
- you are on image1
- you go to image5 (with random key)
- you go to previous image
- now, you are on image4 or 1 ? ...

Whenever assigning keys, you should be aware that other assignments are overwritten and will no longer work. So if there are configurable keys, the option should always look this way:

Use key <x> for
(o) <Action A>
( ) <Action B>

See Options > View > Keyboard/Mouse for more examples.

(Sure enough, when having a completely definable keyboard assignment, this will not apply anymore.)

[helmut]

With all these requests for random viewing, could someone explain what this is used for? I work with graphics quite often and never needed this, so I'd like to know and understand.

[Dreamer]

With all these requests for random viewing, could someone explain what this is used for? I work with graphics quite often and never needed this, so I'd like to know and understand.

I don't need random viewing, I just want a key 'Space' for start/stop slide show, so I don't want it to be fixed for random viewing

[xnview]

With all these requests for random viewing, could someone explain what this is used for? I work with graphics quite often and never needed this, so I'd like to know and understand.

I don't need random viewing, I just want a key 'Space' for start/stop slide show, so I don't want it to be fixed for random viewing

Currently space is used to show next picture, in view mode or slideshow mode. Pause will be for start slideshow in view mode. I'll add Space/Back to go to next/previous picture (random order if selected), and PageDn/PageUp to go to next/previous picture in original order.

[Dreamer]

Currently space is used to show next picture, in view mode or slideshow mode. Pause will be for start slideshow in view mode. I'll add Space/Back to go to next/previous picture (random order if selected), and PageDn/PageUp to go to next/previous picture in original order.

But could you add ability to change that hotkeys?
As I wrote before:

I've got some problem with a 'Pause' key in one movie player, it's maybe a windows problem, so I suggest to add custom hotkey or ability to change ('Space' or 'Pause') to prevent possible problems.

Also many users use a key Space for Play/Pause in video players, so I think Space key would be the best for Start/Stop Slideshow...

Pause will be for start slideshow in view mode

Only in view mode? It's needful mainly for fullscreen...

And what about custom hotkeys, just for some features (like these above) ?

[Gordon Freeman]

First of all : thank you Pierre for adding my request to the "useful future features"-list
Freely customizable keys, as mentioned in the discussion above, would probably be the best of all ways to implement it. I will use <space> and <backspace> then .

Helmut wrote:

With all these requests for random viewing, could someone explain what this is used for? I work with graphics quite often and never needed this, so I'd like to know and understand.

Hello Helmut . This random viewing feature is *very* useful when dealing with vast numbers of cliparts, especially photocliparts, and can become a kind of "creative process" itself. Imagine you are working on a blog with some friends and have the vaguely defined job of "get me a nice picture of a river and have it done 2 hours ago!". It is not so important to find *the picture* but *any fitting Picture* and you will be glad that you don't have to run through 1200+ stock pictures of rivers from the beginning everytime you need a river... you can browse them in an always changing order... with the possibility to go back to the last or the first or the 42nd picture of the particular order if necessary... I personally found this always useful when using ACDSee(tm) several years ago.

ok, monologue mode off

And again: thanks for such a nice program!!

G.F.

[Gordon Freeman]

[the following is copied from a "duplicate" article, thanks to Dreamer, for moving the original article back here to the request forum ;-]

First of all: I like the new 1.80 xnView muchly

Although I have to get used to some of the new behaviours and features, and I suffer from the annoying JPEG-2000 bug, it is a great effort!!
Thank you all who have contributed!

Then I would like to relaunch the request for my "desperately-need-to-have"-feature "random order viewing" as stated in this article:

http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=1384

It would be great, if it could make it into one of the upcoming releases!

Thank you in advance!

GF

[mumajs]

Hello,

is possible in last version of XNview make random viewwing in viewer and fullscreen? I found many request from 2004 and so on, but it seems that it is not implemented yet.

I wish to have it implemented from beginning like irfan have it. It is very easy I think. All keys for image moving will be kept as are now. Only add one key shortcut as R (for example) and it will just jump to random picture in the range. So when you are browsing 100 files and you will be on file 4 then when you press space (or another for next picture) then you will go to picture 5. When you press R then you can jump to random picture from 1 to 4 and 6 to 100. It will jump for example to 30. Then space will go to 31, or you can again press R and you will be on random picture 15 etc... Pressing R will jump in the range randomly. Keys for picture browsing like space, backspace, pgup, pgdown will just continue from LAST picture which is showed.

Sorry for my bad explanation. But this random viewing will be enought for me and can be easy start. You can add this behavior "go to random picture" also into the context menu where next, previous etc. are. So you can do it also by mouse when you click right mouse button.

Thank you,