I would so much prefer XnView to any competing program, and I'm willing to buy, not just using for free, but 3 competing programs have a feature that seems to lack in XnView, at least, an expert user as John Fred C did not see any way to realize what I need, and nobody else, out of some 130 readers having a look into the thread, could give any advice either.
Could you please look into this problem and comment on the possibility of implementing such a feature? Of course, the realization would be extremely easy, since it's just the "normal" behavior, plus "change to browse mode" (= control-b), but with a syslockscreen command betwenn, i.e. preventing the screen to update after the first part of the command, and thus preventing it from flashing / moving the elements; only after the "change to browse mode", the screen would be updated then, in order to show the preview photo and the (first pack of = those that can be displayed at once, plus, in case of, the scroll tab for more) thumbnails AT THE SAME TIME then.
Could you envision such a feature for, let's say, anytime in the next 6 to 8 months?
Here's my detailed description of the problem:
Re: Prev/Prop/Hist/Cat Tabs; "View as Thumbnails"
by Graphics » Thu Dec 02, 2010 9:08 pm
(...)
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!)
(...)
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?
I might add that all three competitors do display photos faster than XnView does, and that in spite of this, I would so much like to use XnView since it's (when well set up, and thankfully, John Fred C kindly helped me with this aspect) really neat, more than any competitor.
But then, if there is implementing a new feature, would it be possible to also put an option into XnView to hide the menu, and even the caption? As stated before, IrfanView does allow for that (for the preview pane only, that is, and the separate thumbs pane there is quite another story)... But anyway, what I really need is the solution to the above-mentioned problem, not further clean-up (when in fact, I'd be quite happy with those on top
)Thank you very much for considering and commenting. (Or for the info how it's even possible today.)