I was lucky enough to get someone to write a quick app that can do basically what I'm looking for. You can simply run it without installing, so you can see what I mean if you don't get my description.
imageview.zip (50.0 KB)
http://s23.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3IL3 ... LXT8KEONZC
What the creator told me:
I'm attaching a very simple compiled windows app that'll do this. Can't give any guarantees on speed or stability, but its been working fine in all of my tests. Requires the .NET Framework.
No support for formats like PSD, TIF, TGA, etc. Those would take some extra work. And really, the overhead of preloading hundreds of files from those formats would probably make the application pretty worthless anyway.
I have suggested to the creator to make these improvements [fingers crossed]:
1. Have option for the background color to be changed and remembered. Or at least let users choose between dark gray, black, or white, since white is not a good background color for viewing images.
2. Have option for images to be centered horizontally or vertically in display.
3. Have option for images larger than displayable area be resized to fit [if possible].
4. Have hotkeys for commands.
5. Put the open options directly under "file" without a subcategory. Perhaps toolbar these commands for even quicker access [but not necessary].
6. Have window size remembered or option to start maximized.
7. Have option for images to be loaded in the order of either: name, date, type, dimensions, file size.
8. Have fullscreen option. Perhaps toggle by doubleclicking the screen.
9. Have option to not display scroll bars in fullscreen mode. But page can still be draggable.
10. Have an unintrusive status bar to show the progress percentage of a folder's image done loading into the viewer [for folders that take some time to fully load all the images].
Hopefully XnView can have a function to display images this way in an upcoming version. I've been told this functionality was very quick and easy to code.