Prev/Prop/Hist/Cat Tabs; "View as Thumbnails"

[Graphics]

Hi,

1 )

I just downloaded the newest version of XnView and tried to do the settings / options the way I would like it. I did not succeed in hiding the Preview / Properties / Histogram / Categories tabs, wanting just the preview pane, no need for "Properties", "Histogram", "Categories", and hence, no need either for the tab "Preview" - and of course, to hide them would also be to increase the preview pane's screen real estate.

I tried this in several layouts, and searched all settings / options, and I found some old threads here, from 2006, addressing a lot of layout problems all together. For me, it's just that special tab bar I want to get rid of.

2 )

I opted for View-View As-View as Thumbnails only, but nethertheless, under the thumbs, the first 12 or so characters of the file's address is displayed, when I just want the thumbnails, not any texts.

3 )

In the right bottom corner of just some thumbs, there is an indication "ICC", or even there are two indications "IPTC" and "ICC"; as before, I do not want those indications to be displayed, and as above, I searched everywhere in order to get rid of those: in vain.

4 )

As you might have understood, I need XnView for presentation purpuses, and thus, I got rid of all screen clutter, except for those above. I just want the "naked" thumbs in a row, the "preview" (as big as possible) in the preview/properties/histogram/categories pane, and, unfortunately, the menu - since if I ask for even hiding the menu, I will not be followed, I fear.

But for the above-mentioned things, hiding them should be possible (and perhaps is, without my having discovered it). In this context: I want to use XnView "commercially", sort of, so I'd be willing to pay, and that's for several licenses, that is - but I cannot show pictures of my goods to would-be customers in XnView when there's screen clutter.

There is indeed a "Full Screen View" but that doesn't display the thumbs, so that won't help me. And there is the "Alternative View" where I can get rid of everything but the menu, but there also, I cannot get the thumbs on top or on a side.

So, I need the above-mentioned "Normal View", but without any clutter but the "naked" thumbs, no second tab bar, no indication or texts with the thumbs.

First, any help would be greatly appreciated, and second, if no help is possible since perhaps I cannot get rid of the above-mentioned screen elements indeed, could the developer consider options for hiding them? Perhaps in a "professional edition" not available for free?

Thank you very much for any advice.

[JohnFredC]

Do you mean XnView 1.97.8 ?

#1: View->TreePane->Use tabs=Off

#2: Tools->Options->Thumbnails->Appearance->Show filename in thumbnail mode=Off

#3: Tools->Options->Thumbnails->Icon Info->Turn everything off

#4: Try the above or...



...try XnView MP beta 0.31!

[Graphics]

Hello JohnFredC,

Thank you very very much for your kind help! And yes, I'm speaking of 1.97.8, "1978"...

In fact, I just didn't find / overlooked the options in 2 and 3, and your hints work perfectly!

As to number 1, it's you who's mistaken at this point, I'm afraid to say, of course I hide the tree, and your hint only works in respect to the three tabs on top of the (hidden) tree pane, whereas the 4 tabs I would like to hide are on top of the "preview" photo pane where they are very prominent, even the more so since the rest of my screen is now, also thanks to your very valuable hints with respect to 2 and 3, perfectly clean and sober.

Thus, is are ANY possible way to get rid of those ugly 4 tabs? Of course, people who work on their pictures, or as long as they work on their pictures, are eager to have them, but once you just want to show / vision your pictures, the tabs are unnecessary and ugly and distracting. Did we not see / overlook something else, or then, might there be a turnaround, by hampering with the ini file?

Or must we ask the developer to put this option in his otherwise absolute tremendous program?

(For the beta of the new program, I've seen there is a whole forum for it already, but I did not capture why there is a new program yet, have meither seen a comparative table, nor the program itself; and I'm not too fond of betas... But I hope very well XnView 1.9xx will be further and farther developed?)

[Graphics]

Sorry, John Fred C, I'm a complete dummy, your only error in your 1-description was that you wrote "TreePane", but the same command is available for "PreviewPane", so it works like wonderful: Tremendous, and very kind and useful help. Many thanks again, and XnView is really best of 'em!

[JohnFredC]

In my layouts, the info panel is tabbed and is a subordinate panel to the preview (with splitter). So, to hide info panels (but keep the Preview), I just click button on the splitter (between the preview and the info)...



Hope this helps!

[Graphics]

(edited just for exterminating some of my spelling errors and make my text more precise:)

Hi John Fred C,

My gosh, that's what I call a cluttered screen !

And I see you have that other pane with the 3 tabs on the right side of the "preview" pane (=which would be the first of four tabs if it was the same pane as it is on my screen); I wasn't aware that too was possible, then! (But as said, I only need the "preview pane" for the photo, without any tabs on top of it, and you were so kind as to help me out - in fact, I'm aware that all 3 questions I could have answered to myself if I didn't get lost in all those options and settings spread a little bit all over the program, so I'm very thankful to you (and others, for the first part) that you didn't tell me to better look into the program instead of bothering you with dumb questions, but that you were so kind as to give me perfect answers.

But now I need real help; I have spent the meantime exclusively with searching the online help file and the forums, and to no avail whatsoever.

In fact, what I want to do, as stated above, is to trigger the display of the contents of a given subdirectory, where there are perhaps 5 or 8 photos (understood there are hundreds of such subdirectories with such a rather tiny amount of files in each of them), and where the .jpg file to be "opened" is displayed in the "preview pane", and where all those 5, 6, 8 pictures are displayed as thumbnails in the thumbnail pane.

This command would be triggered by another program, via that ugly Windows XP DOS box (or even by an AutoIt script if I'm able to write that, avoiding the flashing of the DOS box).

So there would be a command-line command like

c:\path\xnview.exe h:\path\path\path\200.jpg

That command would open the first jpg in that subdirectory, or any other jpg there whose name would be stored in the other program, in order "to have something to open" in / by the command line, since "opening" the whole subdirectory is not possible.

So far so good, but I suppose you got the problem already: Such a command opens that 200.jpg file of my example in "view mode", not in "browse mode", that is, I then have to trigger the command control-b (by hand, by macro or by script, no matter), in order for XnView to go into browser mode, and then only, after very ugly screen movements (since in view mode, the displayed picture is centered other (=lower) than it will be centered on the screen as soon there is the ribbon with the other jpg's of that subdirectory beneath it (=a little higher)), all those jpg's of the subdirectory are displayed at the bottom of my screen (in my layout selection that is, = 6th option of the View-Layout menu, with the tree minimized (= invisible) to the left screen border) - that's very neat indeed!

Thus, I'm desperately trying out possible command line options, e.g. the above-mentioned command line, with /b, with /browse, with -b, with -browse (or even, instead of 200.jpg, *.jpg), and also, I've been looking, in vain, for a table or description of available command line options other than those that can be found in the help file and which only concern screen capture, but not any opening (and displaying) of files.

In short, what I need is a command line option which allows for opening a given photo, automatically in browse mode, that is, with all the pictures of the subdirectory of the given picture-to-be-opened, displayed as thumbs. Of course, this will cause a short waiting time (as does the command control-b whden triggered afterwards), but since there ain't too many pictures in any of my subdirectories, this won't be a problem for me - but the movements / flashing on the screen constitute a real problem for me - as said, it's for presentation purposes in front of would-be customers, so it must be neat!

Please let me say that both FastStone Image Viewer (which by all other means is the most ugly thing I know, with un-hideable toolbars and other hideous status bars splattered everywhere around the whole screen) and IrfanView (which has a very elegant preview pane, without any menu and caption bars even if you want it to be, let alone status bars or other clutter, but unfortunately also with a separate (as XnView once had if I remember well?), very ugly and cluttered thumbs pane that cannot be straightened up) DO THIS:

Both programs show all given photos of a folder as soon as you "open" one of those photos of that folder. This is so important for me that I would be forced to use one of those two programs (instead of the otherwise VERY elegant XnView) if there was really no way to have a similar behavior in XnView; I simply need it (but I had thought, up to now, that there weren't any problem, since the other two programs do it).

Can this be done in XnView, by any means? I would even settle for just loading the thumbs, the preview pane staying empty before clicking on any thumb, but thumbs simply must be displayed by some "loading" / "opening" command line command, not just one photo.

If this is simply not possible at this time, could Pierre consider implementing this feature? WITH this feature, XnView would be the most elegant viewer on the market - since there ain't that many that display thumbnails in the first place, thus limiting our choice (FastViewer allowing for thumbs displaying with Vista and Windows 7 only, not in XP). I would be willing to wait for this feature for some months if it can / will be done - if it's already possible today, all the better then, and all the happier I would be.

Any ideas how to realize this?

(And then, ain't there any special non-screen-capturing command line commands, except for transferring commands to make the transition from one picture format into another, and similar? I even found those, but nothing that could help me with my problem!)

[JohnFredC]

Hi Graphics...

This is just to show that I too sometimes use a minimal interface in XnView:



I think the only thing missing from XnView to address your complaint is a behavior that automatically selects the first image when entering a folder. You could post that as a request here in the forum.

[Graphics]

Hi John Fred C,

Nice screenshot, really beautiful, it's just what I like!

But, isn't there any way to do it? See, I do not need to "open a folder", in a way that XnView automatically opens the first file in the folder, or something like that, I'm perfectly willing to select one of the files in the given folder, and to transfer its address to XnView, it's just that XnView should be able (as are the three competing programs) to open that given file in "browse mode", by an option in the command itself, by a global option in the program or by whatever other means. The problem is all the more awkward since the DEFAULT mode of XnView is that browse mode, it just refuses to open files in that default browse mode when opening that file by a command line command.

So there isn't any way at this time? No command option to chose from, or anything, no ini file tweak, nothing?

[JohnFredC]

Hi Graphics...

If I understand your request correctly...

All you have to do is pass the folder name (not an image name) on the command line.

C:\PathtoXnView\XnView.exe "C:\PathtoFolderWithImages"

There are many ways to do that... I use a button in TotalCommander but others here may offer their own methods.

[Graphics]

Hi John Fred C,

I

Many thanks! Again, how dumb of me! As said, I had even tried out xnview.exe path\*.jpg, but I overlooked the variant to just load xnview.exe path\folder, without specifying any further file(s), and indeed, now XnView starts in browser mode and displays all thumbs of the given (sub)folder, indeed without displaying any (first file) preview, but I think I can live with that, especially since in the thumbs collecting displayed, the first file / thumb is sort of pre-selected (without any frame around it yet), and just pressing the RIGHT ARROW KEY will really select it and display it in the (up to that empty) preview pane. There isn't any screen elements moving / flashing involved, and when doing it by macro / script, the preview will be displayed a fraction of a second after the display of the thumbs has been down - not really perfect, but MUCH better than the opening of any file, and THEN displaying the thumbs. So this is really good if not yet perfect - so there's room for improvement. (Why didn't I see the possibility to just load a folder? Because when I tried this with other programs some time ago, I was not successful, indeed, most programs FORCE you to specify a file in that folder, so I so much thought it impossible by now that I did not even remember this possibility... I'll have to try again with the competitors...)

Let's see if Pierre sees the necessity / utility to implement an option for this: "When loading a folder, automatically load the first file in it at the same time: yes/no"...

II

I've got another problem, oh yes...

In fact, XnView only allows a) for ONE instance, OR b) for an undefinite number of instances (the competiting programs are not "better" in this, I think). This is not really good since in a) you only can view ONE folder at a time, and you would need to do multiple loadings of XnView, as stated above, in order to toggle between two folders.

In b), EVERY loading of a new folder would load a new instance of XnView with it, so you would quickly have 20 or 50 instances of XnView not only filling up your memory, but especially, you would be unable to find any given folder in those multiple instances again, so even for "going back" to some folder, you would need to load another instance of XnView... and another one, and another one...

Of course, almost everybody would like to have an option for a third alternative, that is, to have TWO instances of XnView allowed, and which would be "addressed" (by the command line command, that is) by some /1 or /2, or by some -2 or -2, or whatever there might be as an identifier! Just imagine somebody who wants to sell goods - as I had stated above -, and he discusses TWO alternative goods with the would-be customer; each good would have some photos of details, etc., and of course, one would like to toggle, and even, display BOTH sets of photos at the same time: Certainly two rows of thumbs, but perhaps only one preview; let's say one row at the left, one row at the right, the preview pane being in the middle, and by mouse clicks on the thumbs, you would then chose the preview photo. Of course, this concept would even be possible with two rows of thumbs, and two preview panes = two instances of XnView - OR ONE instance of XnView only, with two rows of thumbs, and 1 or 2 preview panes WITHIN that unique instance of XnView.

I know exactly this scenario, one instance of XnView with this "compare" feature, has been discussed in a special thread here... but that threads originated in 2004 (!!!!!), and there never ever anything came out of it, even now, 6 years afterwards! (Somebody did some other post there, in October 2010, but then, in a 6-year-old thread, that indicates that nothing will ever be done about those suggestions?!)

Thus, I tried, with XnView and some other programs, some months ago (and with "old" versions), the concept of TWO instances of XnView, trying to address them separately. I tried to RENAME one of the instances, or both, i.e. I tried to install XnView two times, as XnView1 and XnView2, but unfortunately, internally, Windows-wise, those XnView's always installed themselves in the ini files or Windows registry as ONE program...

but then, I must say, I did not really check out thoroughly all this, including tries to work around it, by hampering with the ini files and / or the registry, so I must do this before I can pretend it's not possible to do.

And of course, there's always the possibility to use two different programs; it's extremely easy to address those separately, by any command line command... but it's on the screen that this solution is not really neat, since you'd have two different imaging programs there, plus the third program, with text, search results, and so on, so it would really be some clutter after all!

Thus, John Fred C, if you have any ideas ad-hoc how to address two different XnView instances separately / distinctively, each of them having the option "allow for ONE instance only", please tell me; if not, I'll try to try it out with ini file / registry tweaking, and I'll post the results here, be they positive or negative.

It all narrows down to the question, how to "rename completely / disguise" a second copy of XnView so that the first copy does not interfere with the trying of installing / loading that second copy, and vice versa. If there is an XnView1 and an XnView2 on your computer, you could load files and folders into them, to 1 and to 2, in a controlled way - and not having just one instance of XnView... or then, having 50 instances of it...

I am aware that this is a subject of general interest since there has been this other thread here for 6 years, to no avail, and many, many users would like to have this feature, not for commercial reasons but just to compare pictures... and my solution would be not a perfect, but a realizable work-around, in order to have this feature... but then, I'm also aware that indeed, you could simply load two (of possible multiple) instances of XnView, and then manually, by mouse click, change the featured photos in each of them, without having to bother with a 3rd... 50th instance of XnView. But for any half-automatic browsing your files collections, and be it just by a simple macro showing one of your preferred photo collections, my work-around would be THE solution... allowing us to wait another 6 years for the real thing...

if it works, which, as said, in my last but very superficial try, it did not (yet)...

In the meantime, your help under "I" is a tremendous step ahead for me, John Fred C, thus again, many, many thanks: great, big help!