GImageView 0.2.27 review

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GImageView is a yet another image viewer which solves hopless situation under displaying a lot of images

License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
File size: 0K
Developer: Takuro Ashie
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GImageView is a yet another image viewer which solves hopless situation under displaying a lot of images. It works on X Window System.

Here are some key features of "GImageView":
Simple, but usefull/flexible user interface

Thumbnail window has 3 paned view (directory tree view, thumbnail view and image preview), and its layout is fully castomizable by Drag and Drop. The image can be also displayed by separated image window.

Managing image files

It can copy, move and link image files by Drag and Drop. It can also drop image files to external programs like GIMP, Nautilus, Konqueror and so on.

It's not supported Cut and Paste interface yet, but in ther future, we will implement it.

Also usefull for command line usage

If you specify image files and direcotries from comamnd line, image files are opened by image window, and directories are opened by thumbnail window automatically. You can also execute slideshow directly from comannd line.

You may wonder it seems natural thing, but I think, although it is unexpected, there is little such software in fact.

In addition to it, we want to enable to use various functions like "Find Duplicates" from comannd line at feature version.

Tabbed browsing

It can open two or more directories at same time by tabbed thumbnail window which looks like tabbed web browser. If you drop files to tab, you can copy, move and link files to the directory.

Supported image formats

It supports following image formats. But some formats which cannot be shown are also exists by whether compiled against gdk-pixbuf or Imlib.

In the future, we aim that it supports all formats by itself natively.

JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group
PNG - Portable Network Graphics (libpng is required)
PPM - Portable PixalMap
PPM - Portable GrayMap
PPM - Portable BitMap
GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
XBM - X BitMap
XPM - X PixMap
BMP - Windows Bitmap
ICO - Windows Icon
PCX
TGA - Truevision TARGA Format
XCF
MAG - MAKIchan Graphic loader (MAKI02 Format)
SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics (gdk-pixbuf and librsvg are required)
MNG - Multiple-image Network Graphics (libmng is required)
WMF - Windows Meta File (libwmf is required)
ANI - Windows Animated Cursor (Gtk+-2 is required)
RAS - Sun Raster Image(Gtk+-2 is required)

Playing animation files

It can play animation like animation GIF and MNG. Although GIF support is depended on gdk-pixbuf, but it has a lot of problem. In the future, we will modified it to use libungif.

Playing movie and sound files

It can play movie and sound files by using Xine library and MPlayer. Supported movie/sound formats are depended on these software.

AVI (MS-MPEG4, DivX, MotionJPEG, Cinepack and so on...)
MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MPEG1 Audio Layer 3
Quick Time
Real Media
Ogg Vorbis
Any other unknown types...

It can also create thumbnails, but it has also following limits.

When use Xine :

Thumbnail can only be created when play the movie on image view.
It can grab any frame.
CPU and Disk load is light.

When use MPlayer :

Thumbnail can be created both when open directory and when play the movie.
It can grab any frame, but it isn't often same with the frame displayed on image view.
CPU and Disk load is heavy (use temporary file).

Extracting compressed files

It can extracting compressed files like GZIP, BZIP2 automatically on memmory (When the image file is loaded by Imlib, it isn't supported yet). File name extension is not registed by default. Please open common -> filter page of preference dialog and regist it manually.

Extracting archive files

It can open archive files by using external command.

(Currently it is ad-hoc feature, so we will rewrite it completly).

tar
lha
zip
rar

Supported various thumbnail cache types

GImageView aims to use existing resources, so it also use existing thumbnail cache files created by other softwares.

Konqueror (KDE-3.1.0 or early)
GQview
Electric Eyes (Picview)
Nautilus
XV

(We will implement loading Thumbnail Managing Standard type cache which supported by latest Konqueror and Nautilus at next version

Slideshow

Of course it supports slideshow. Not only fullscreen but also can play slideshow on each image windows

10 types of thumbnail view modes

There are 10 types thumbnail view modes such as "Album" mode, "Detail" mode, "Icon" mode, "Rename" mode and so on. In the feature, we will rewrite "Icon mode" completly.

Finding duplicated images

It can find duplicated image files by file siez, md5sum and similarity, and display it by tree view.

Thorough plug-in structure (Planning)

GImageView aims to keep the core simple, and to implement all additional features as plug-in. So, it has follwing advantages:

It can separate unnecessary features from core.
When anyone distribute binary package, it can keep dependency as minimum.
Anyone may add image loader, image saver, archiver, image view mode, thumbnail view mode, decompressor easyly.

In the feature, we will separate dependency of gdk-pixbuf and Imlib and also implement printting feature as plug-in. We also want to enable using other software's plug-in. But, currently plug-in interface is not frozen yet.

Simple photo retouching feature (Not implemented yet)

Currently it is not implemented yet.

We will implemente minimum retouching color balance feature and clipping feature.

Requirements:
Gtk+-1.2 series or Gtk+-2.0 series
Imlib or gdk-pixbuf
Also it can compile against Imlib, but we recommend to use gdk-pixbuf. When you compile against Gtk+2, it force use gdk-pixbuf.
libpng
zlib

What's New in This Release:
Added some options for slideshow. (Thanks! > Christian Hammers)
Added Xine image loader for movie thumbnail. (experimental)
The bug that sometime same files are appeared numbers of times on same thumbnail view has been fixed. (Thanks reporting > shlomif)
Enable to open archived files which has "[" in its filename.
Other minor bug fixes are made.

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