Bug report – focus lost after interacting with video timeline

[sx090]

Hi,

I noticed a small issue when reviewing videos in the Browse / folder view.

When I click through files and select a video to open/preview it in the "preview panel", everything works normally at first. But if I click into the video timeline (seek bar) to jump to another position, XnView MP seems to lose the focus on the file in the browser. After that, pressing "Delete" on the Keyboard no longer deletes the selected file.

This does not happen with images. When I click inside the preview panel of an image, the file in the folder view keeps the focus and I can still delete it with Delete.

With videos, however, clicking the timeline removes the focus from the file, which makes it harder to quickly review and delete clips while sorting through them.

Would it be possible to keep the file focus in the browser even after interacting with the video timeline?

Thanks!

You see the different "selection" color also, after "selecting" the video file in the Browse-Mode, i the blueish color looks like this:

2026-03-04_09h36_46.jpg

When I click into the timeline (2) the blueish selection color changes and it is not really selected anymore...

2026-03-04_09h19_55.jpg

[xnview]

yes by clicking on timeline, you set the focus on it

[user0]

yes by clicking on timeline, you set the focus on it

but Del shortcut should still work, eg Alt+C/M works fine

[xnview]

perhaps better is to not focus seekbar??

[sx090]

I'm not sure how to workaround this issue when reviewing my vacation images/videos as I want to quickly go through them in the Browser Mode, but for longer videos I need to zap/"scroll" through the timeline to effectively "rewatch" the movie and see if I wanna keep or delete it...

So, yes, as stated initially: Clicking the timeline makes loose focus, but at least "DEL" Key should still work. I mean it also works when using the "Full Viewing" mode.. Would be awesome to add, otherwise no clue on how to watch all those movies and being able to super quickly sort and delete them.

[jkm]

I'm not sure how to workaround this issue when reviewing my vacation images/videos as I want to quickly go through them in the Browser Mode, but for longer videos I need to zap/"scroll" through the timeline to effectively "rewatch" the movie and see if I wanna keep or delete it...
...
otherwise no clue on how to watch all those movies and being able to super quickly sort and delete them.

Sorry, but the notion that an extra click or keystroke ruins "super quick" makes no sense when you're already taking time to watch portions of the video. An extra click adds no time compared to that.

But here are a couple of workarounds for you:

1. Since in the situations where you lose focus you already have the mouse in hand to click the timeline, simply click the thumbnail once to return focus there. Then hit Delete.

or

2. After playing with the timeline, hit the Tab key. Then hit Delete. Tab will return your focus to the Browser pane.

You also have the option using available software to bind keystrokes like these to mouse buttons, to further make things "super quick". I have cmd_Close bound to a mouse button so I don't have to hit the keyboard or move the mouse when I want to close the viewer window.

Losing focus when clicking the timeline is a small annoyance, true, and it would be nice if it were fixed. But it's easily worked around.

[jkm]

perhaps better is to not focus seekbar??

If that change were made, then people would not be able to use keyboard keys like left/right/home/end to control the seek bar, and they might not like losing that ability. Something to consider.

[sx090]

@jkm
You seem to have misunderstood the workflow I described clearly.
I'm not watching portions of the video. The whole point is very fast triaging of clips.

My left hand stays on the keyboard the entire time — on Delete, Enter, and the arrow keys.
My right hand stays on the mouse over the video timeline.

The workflow looks like this:

* Arrow key → go to next file
* Quick click somewhere in the timeline → jump to a random spot in the video to see what's in it (often the thumbnail doesn't tell you anything)
* Immediately press Delete+Enter to delete the file (which in fact doesnt work anymore)

I'm not scrubbing through or watching for several seconds. It's literally a single click just to quickly check the content.

The problem is that clicking the timeline removes the file focus from the browser. That breaks the flow because Delete suddenly stops working, forcing an extra step to restore focus.

In a workflow where you're reviewing **hundreds or thousands of clips**, that extra step absolutely matters. It's exactly the kind of tiny interruption that slows down high-speed sorting.

Your workaround requires either:

* moving the mouse away from the timeline to the thumbnail, or
* adding an extra keypress just to restore focus.

Both defeat the purpose....

So yes — it is a small issue, but in this kind of workflow it becomes a noticeable slowdown.
That's why I suggested keeping the file focus when interacting with the video timeline, similar to how image previews already behave.

[jkm]

@jkm

This isn't twitter. @ doesn't work here.

You seem to have misunderstood the workflow I described clearly.

Oh please...

I'm not watching portions of the video.

Oh?

I need to zap/"scroll" through the timeline to effectively "rewatch" the movie

...no clue on how to watch all those movies...

And now there's thousands of them... Ok. They must be really short vacation videos, as there's only 1440 minutes in a day.

As I said, small annoyances should be addressed. But one extra keypress, which takes about a quarter of a second, does not derail the process and defeat the purpose. I call bs. All the extra drama is unnecessary. Good luck with your culling.

[sx090]

@jkm

This isn't twitter. @ doesn't work here.

If nitpicking about a single character is the only thing you took away from the discussion, that says more about your reply than about my post.
You must be a troll, srsly

So I ask you to kindly move on and dont hijack my described workflow thread any further, thanks

Btw, do yourself a favor and dont waste your time. You are on the ignore list anyhow

[jkm]

Just hit a key and stop whining.

[sx090]

Pierre, I have one Idea.

Wouldn't it be possible to "simply", as a workaround, accept the DEL key when the focus is on the timeline (i.e. the video element), so that the DEL is not only acepted based on the List entries but also while the element itself is selected?

Thanks


EDIT:
@jkm
I just saw there's a post from you that is hidden for me now. phpBB still working greatly as expected.

2026-03-16_09h16_29.jpg

Dont waste your time buddy, aint gonna read any of these nonsense posts after you exposed yourself as the biggest troll of this forum by nitpicking about "@" signs etc But if you want, apparently you can go on and spend your time if you are bored

[user0]

perhaps better is to not focus seekbar??

it does not matter where exactly focus is inside Preview tab
Del and Shift+Del should always work