Confusing behaviour of zoom commands

[Anamon]

I'll try to describe the problem as clearly as I can, bear with me

In XnView Classic, you could set a default option for the image zoom in View mode by going through the options menu. Namely, you could choose whether small images should be stretched, too large images fit to the window, neither, or both (in various modes). This setting was preserved over sessions. After that, you could dynamically change zoom settings per session, while browsing pictures, by using the 100% and Fit zoom options, which were assigned to the * and / shortcuts respectively.

In XnViewMP, the default zoom option in Options has been removed and in turn, as far as I can tell, the respective option in the menus changed from per-session to persistent.

This would be fine, but the result is that the zoom mode commands/shortcuts are now extremely confusing, because the 100% (*) and Fit (/) settings behave differently:

• Zooming to 100% (*) is per-session, as it used to be, because it is only a zoom command.
• Zooming to window fit (/) is persistent, i.e. is set as a default for all subsequent sessions after closing XnViewMP.

This is because the actual command which the / shortcut maps to is still the same (the one in the menu as opposed to the one in the options dialogue), but the behaviour of that command has changed (it used to be per-session, and is now persistent).

Having one zoom command be persistent and one per-session is very irritating. They should either be harmonised, or the user given both possibilities. I strongly favour the latter option, because I think a user needs to be able to set some baseline setting that he can trust will always be valid when he opens the software. When I go through many pictures in a row, I count on the ability to judge their size by the initial default zoom in the window. This was fine in XnView, but in XnViewMP, whether a small image is stretched to fit or not depends on whether I used the Fit zoom setting at any point during previous sessions, and before noticing that I need to disable it again.

[xnview]

What would be better?

[quapurna]

If you 'lock' the zoom you use, is the behaviour still confusing to you ?

[Anamon]

Sorry for the late reply!

What would be better – if the question is what would be less confusing, I would say probably anything other than the current way As for what would be preferrable I guess it starts to become about personal opinion.

Reading back my original description it seems confusing, even misleading in places. Let my try to summarize again:

I work with high-resolution photos a lot and there I, as I'm sure most people, constantly switch between viewing the entire image using '/', and 100% zoom to look at details using '*'. The confusion stems from the fact that there are two closely linked hotkeys (switching between native resolution and shrink-to-fit), as also hinted at by their proximity on the keyboard (* and /), which behave considerably differently ('*' resets when changing the image, '/' persists even across sessions), as evidenced by their commands being in different menus ('Zoom' and 'Auto image size' respectively). In XnView Classic it made more sense because '/' was non-persistent across sessions, being overriden by the default image size option in preferences. I would hazard a guess that most users never want images to be upscaled by default when they open a viewer. Upscaling is certainly a feature with its uses for certain tasks, but by default it is just a factor of confusion and gives a completely wrong impression of the actual file.

The 'Lock Zoom' setting doesn't make a difference. As I mentioned above, one aspect of the issue is that he '/' hotkey is not a Zoom command, so whenever you use it it will disable the Lock Zoom setting anyway.

As I assume the removal of the default image size option was a deliberate change for usability's sake, I'm not asking for the option back. But its removal has had consequences that I think might not have been fully considered. What I think would be the best and easiest solution to get a less confusing behaviour would be either to add a hotkey for the "fit only large images" setting in Auto image size, or add a new Zoom option with its own hotkey that results in a fit-to-window zoom level (which like the other zoom settings would reset when changing to a different image). Both of these options would allow users to prevent unwanted upscaling of images. In the first case, they could just use a different hotkey than the current '/' if they want to prevent unwanted default upscaling. In the second case, the default image size setting wouldn't be permanently changed every time they want to look at a large image in full. Of course, the deluxe option would be to have fully customizable hotkeys for all the menu entries – that would solve my gripe and probably a lot of others as well

[m.Th.]

First off, you're not alone: http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=29616

I work with high-resolution photos a lot and there I, as I'm sure most people, constantly switch between viewing the entire image using '/', and 100% zoom to look at details using '*'.

This is the gist of the problem.

And the sad part is that the code is already there in the most part. Just GUI & Defaults for a New Install must change a bit.

In Tools | Settings | Interface | Mouse

0. Make these to work also for the Preview pane.
1. Change the text label of "Move picture" for the Left Button to "Zoom & Move Picture". Make it default.
2. I'd say Left Click+CTRL will be the default for "Make Selection" then

This is the absolute minimum.

More upon request.

Of course, the deluxe option would be to have fully customizable hotkeys for all the menu entries – that would solve my gripe and probably a lot of others as well

Settings | Interface | Shortcuts

Beware that there is a "Browse mode" and a "View mode"

[Anamon]

Of course, the deluxe option would be to have fully customizable hotkeys for all the menu entries – that would solve my gripe and probably a lot of others as well

Settings | Interface | Shortcuts

Huh! Is that a relatively new tab? I think I remember browsing the entire options screen for a way to customise shortcuts, and didn't find it. On a sidenote, it would be nice if the dialogue could be completed (for example I wasn't able to set a shortcut for "Selection aspect ratio - like image" that I use quite often when cropping. It used to be 'D' in XnView Classic. At least choosing it once persists across image changes).

I reassigned the '/' shortcut to "... large only", so I am happy for now! Thank you very much for pointing out this solution to me. I still think the default settings are rather irritating, but it's good to have a clean workaround.