XnView Software

I'm an old (we won't say how old heh) Cerious veteran — a daily user of Thumbs+ Pro — who finally decided to explore open source thumbnail programs. Most people don't appreciate just how valuable is a utility for tagging/marking/flagging graphics and icons buried in hundreds-of-thousands of image files. Users should not be suffered to execute multiple keyboard keystrokes (CNTL+, ALT+ etc.) just to distinguish select files from the mountain of unwanted rubbish they're buried under.

My first glimpse is that the interface is visually attractive and professional. XnView has taken pity on those of us with huge libraries of images, and (mercifully) programmed the tagging of selections — while we wade through the 99% volume of crap we don't want — to the fastest shortcut on the keyboard: the Spacebar. I can't thank the developers enough for appreciating that image-editing utilities are of no use to the User whatsoever if they can't find the bloody files to begin with!

There is one feature in particular I was hoping to find in XnView, and it's what I consider to be the “Holy Grail” of image management: a Slideshow utility robust enough to allow single-stroke (the Spacebar again) keyboard-tagging of multiple selected files dynamically while the Slideshow is running; to then exit that Slideshow and proceed to the container (folder, etc.) where our tagged selections have been moved to; and to finally commence however many more Slideshows are necessary to get our selections sorted.

I'm asking here in the forum because pressing F1 in XnView for Help did nothing (that I could observe). This is a magnificent program and I'm eager to experience its features once I find where the User Guide is!!

mw

Welcome to the forum, mw

merry widow wrote:I'm asking here in the forum because pressing F1 in XnView for Help did nothing (that I could observe). This is a magnificent program and I'm eager to experience its features once I find where the User Guide is!!

Info » Help (F1) should take you to the XnView (Windows) User Guide. Does your firewall prevent XnView from going online?

merry widow wrote:There is one feature in particular I was hoping to find in XnView, and it's what I consider to be the “Holy Grail” of image management: a Slideshow utility robust enough to allow single-stroke (the Spacebar again) keyboard-tagging of multiple selected files dynamically while the Slideshow is running; to then exit that Slideshow and proceed to the container (folder, etc.) where our tagged selections have been moved to; and to finally commence however many more Slideshows are necessary to get our selections sorted.

Keyboard hotkeys & shortcuts for tagging and untagging files:

• Browser mode: Ctrl+T, Insert, Space
• Viewer mode & slideshow: Ctrl+T, Insert, Space

You can tell XnView how long to remember tags…

• Tools » Options... » Thumbnails » Icon info » Tagged file list must be cleared:
  • After an operation
  • After folder change
  • On exit
  • Never

… and to display only thumbnails of tagged files in the browser:

• View » Tree pane » Categories » Tag

Related topics:

• Tags: Clear all tags / Untag all - Difference
• easy delete / sort out / mark pictures while slideshow?

My bad! I didn't read thoroughly XnTriq. I'll take it out and give it a spin.

XnTriq wrote:Info » Help (F1) should take you to the XnView (Windows) User Guide. Does your firewall prevent XnView from going online?

Probably. I'll troubleshoot it another day. XnTriq (ah! i finally figured out your name, don't worry I won't tell anyone heh very clever) I have a few of those myself hee hee.

Now XnTriq, my tagging inquiry was whether the Spacebar-tag method could be done from within a Slideshow. Example:

With my User preference for seconds-per-image recorded in the XnView Slideshow Options, I start a Slideshow. At some point while I am watching the volume of rubbish fly by, I see a graphic I actually want. Can I pause the Slideshow, Spacebar-tap to select the graphic, (do something else to) resume the Slideshow where I left off, and upon the Slideshow ending, locate the files I tagged during the Slideshow?

mw

Only XnViewMP allows users to fully customize the keyboard shortcuts.

• XnView “Classic”
  • Tools » Options...
    • Keyboard/Mouse

• XnViewMP
  • Tools » Settings...
    • Keyboard/Mouse
      Interface » Shortcuts

• What's different in XnView MP [Full List]
• List of missing features (compared to XnView Classic)

Hi XnTriq. I just don't have the words. I'm blown away. Entire vistas of reclaimed hours await me.

The last time I got this excited about a productivity tool was years ago when I stumbled upon The Immortal (to we few millions who swear by it) Lupas Renamer. I do not doubt that there are more beautiful GUIs to be had in a renamer utility, but Lupas is every command-line programmer's favorite. It has such a tiny footprint it's a joy to fly through (for example) commercial clipart portfolios using Lupas's powerful Recursive Folders feature to hunt down the pathetic collection of (eg.) 100,000 gifs , buried in nested folders that Corel, Adobe, Nova et al. hope you will never observe are essentially one graphic in a different hue. Batch re-prefix, re-suffix, re-sort, re-extension, re-case, re-name-crop, position-insert/cut, increment 6 different ways; treat folders like files; choose alpha or numerical to index; and zero-fill the lot.

Both utilities — Lupas and ReView — are going to get along famously I predict.

XnTriq could I ask — how would you recommend I constrain the size of the Slideshow window? It's easier for my brain to not be flooded with a full-screen viewport on my widescreen monitor. I've always found this to be tricky in Thumbs+ because (all of) the options are so overwhelming, not least of which for Slideshow.

I'd like to have a modest viewport constrained to a 500px height (full-width okay) and have images with heights larger than 500px constrain to my setting. I definitely do not want thousands of graphics resizing the viewport with each new image, or they'll have to put me in a padded cell. I will give them one window scaled to 500px height.

The tricky part is spanning small files, such as tiny webpage gifs and Icons. If they expand to the full 500px container, their rendering is as crude as their context is misrepresented: Viewing their full size (32px X 32px) is too small, and yet whatever level of zoom you settle for to render the tiniest among them dumbs down every other full-sized graphic.

It's a classic IF—ELSE—THEN flowchart challenge. Any tips you can give me would be welcome XnTriq.

mw

Hi again, mw (-:

merry widow wrote:The last time I got this excited about a productivity tool was years ago when I stumbled upon The Immortal (to we few millions who swear by it) Lupas Renamer.

XnView has quite an impressive file renaming engine of its own: Tools » Options... » Batch Rename... (-;

merry widow wrote:XnTriq could I ask — how would you recommend I constrain the size of the Slideshow window? It's easier for my brain to not be flooded with a full-screen viewport on my widescreen monitor. I've always found this to be tricky in Thumbs+ because (all of) the options are so overwhelming, not least of which for Slideshow.

View » Layout provides you with a number of presets.

You could also open a browser and a viewer window, click on the restore button of each child window/tab and then go to Window » Tile. I believe you have to activate Use different position/size for browser & view and Remenber last window position/size (Tools » Options... » Interface) in order for this to work properly and to make it “stick”.

merry widow wrote:The tricky part is spanning small files, such as tiny webpage gifs and Icons. If they expand to the full 500px container, their rendering is as crude as their context is misrepresented: Viewing their full size (32px X 32px) is too small, and yet whatever level of zoom you settle for to render the tiniest among them dumbs down every other full-sized graphic.

So you're looking for a combination of Fit image to windows, large only (View » Auto Image Size) and something like Zoom in images smaller than ?¿?px² by ?¿?%?

I think I just have to play around with it. And frankly, there's no reason why I can't just manually isolate the Punytude and give them their own proprietary viewport. Thank you for all these excellent tips XnTriq, I'm certain to be popping into the forum regularly.

mw
Man, what is with these bug icons? lol

BTW: For viewing icons, I find the View » Lock Zoom command very helpful.

merry widow wrote:Man, what is with these bug icons? lol

They're mostly used during beta-testing.

Bug
Bug - Confirmed
Bug - Fixed