XnView Software

Hello, I've been recently testing your software and noticed the following:
1. upon opening videos, the program somehow goes in the background so you have to click or alt-tab to focus it meaning shortcuts like ESC or scroll don't work instantly
2. in settings>interface>keyboard>Pressing ESC once quits XNViewMP 'Never' and 'Always' have no effect. The program always closes on ESC in window mode no matter the option
3. there is no loop option for videos, others probably have mentioned this already
4. pressing ESC on .gifs stops them instead of closing the viewer, i'd recommend replacing it with Space or one of the mouse buttons (press to pause and press again to play)
5. there was a weird occurrence on one video which I tried to reproduce but failed: the video was playing and instead of ESC I clicked X(close) and it asked me something but I also pressed ESC fast so the small dialog box closed and after it the viewer closed as well.
Thanks and sorry if these were repeated. I hope the features will be worked on. You have my support in your work

Which version of Xnview MP? and what's your Operating System?

1. upon opening videos, the program somehow goes in the background so you have to click or alt-tab to focus it meaning shortcuts like ESC or scroll don't work instantly

I cannot reproduce this, each time I open a video it's in focus.

4. pressing ESC on .gifs stops them instead of closing the viewer, I'd recommend replacing it with Space or one of the mouse buttons (press to pause and press again to play)

It's a matter of point of view I like the Esc to stop the gif
Use Ctrl+W and it will close the gif
I would not recommend to touch the Space bar as it is to see the next image or the next video which make a lot of sense as it is the biggest key on the keyboard (you do not have to think) and to cull images and videos it's straight forward (which is also the primary function of XnView as a viewer)
The space bar is also used in this exact way in "all" *nix system (Mac and Linux for instance) when you visualize your photos in a folder with the default viewer of the OS

there was a weird occurrence on one video which I tried to reproduce but failed: the video was playing and instead of ESC I clicked X(close) and it asked me something but I also pressed ESC fast so the small dialog box closed and after it the viewer closed as well.

I think XnView asked you if you want to save your session

I am on Linux so XnView MP might not act the same way as yours