Gwenview 1.4.1 review

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gwenviewGwenview is a fast and easy to use image viewer and browser for KDE. All common imag

License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
File size: 0K
Developer: Aur?lien G?teau
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gwenviewGwenview is a fast and easy to use image viewer and browser for KDE.

All common image formats are supported, such as PNG (including transparency), JPEG (including EXIF tags and lossless transformations), GIF (images as well as animations), XCF (Gimp image format), BMP, XPM and others.

Standard features include slideshow, fullscreen view, image thumbnails, drag'n'drop, image zoom, full network transparency using the KIO framework, including basic file operations and browsing in compressed archives, non-blocking GUI with adjustable views.

Gwenview also provides image and directory KParts components for use e.g. in Konqueror.

Additional features, such as image renaming, comparing, converting, batch processing, HTML gallery and others are provided by the KIPI image framework.

Here are some key features of "gwenview":
Image viewing

Gwenview can load and save all image formats supported by KDE, but Gwenview can also browse GIMP files (*.xcf) thanks to the included QXCFI component developed by
Lignum Computing.
It correctly displays images with alpha channel, using the traditionnal checker board as a background to reveal transparency.
Gwenview let you accurately control the way images are scaled: you can zoom in and out or automatically scale the image to fit the window. You can also lock the zoom factor to keep the same zoom between images.
When browsing JPEG images with EXIF information, Gwenview automatically rotates them according to the EXIF Orientation tag.
It can show image properties and image specific meta-information like Konqueror does.
Since version 1.1.8, Gwenview knows how to show animated images like MNG or GIF.

Image manipulations

Gwenview does not try to replace your favorite image editor, so it only features the most simple image manipulations: rotation and mirroring. If JPEGTran is installed, Gwenview will perform lossless manipulations. For more complex image manipulations, you can start any external tools from Gwenview. You can define your very own selection of tools to fit your needs.

Browsing your collections of images

Gwenview features the necessary file management operations: copy, move, delete, rename and drag'n drop images. It has full support for KIO slaves: you can browse FTP/Windows shares, go into tar balls or zip files.
Depending on your needs and on the type of images you are browsing, you can choose to use a detailed file view or the thumbnail view, which features three easily accessible thumbnail sizes.
The keyboard browsing allow you to go from one image to another without loading all the images between them.
Reach your collection folders fast with the folder bookmarks. The bookmarks are shared with Konsole and KDE file dialogs.

Presenting your images

The fullscreen with optional overlayed image file and the simple built-in slide show allows you to present images the way you want them to show.

The interface

Gwenview features a folder tree window and a file list window to provide easy navigation among your thousand images.
It uses docked windows, so you can alter the layout in any way you want. You can also browse your images in full screen.

Requirements:
The latest version of Gwenview needs KDE 3.1. The 1.0.x series need the JPEGTran program to perform lossless rotations, which you can get from the libjpeg library. The 1.1.x series do not need it anymore.

What's New in This Release:
New features:
Show preview of images when dragging them.
Added "back/forward/reload/save as" actions to the KPart context menu (Bug 127560).

Fixes:

Fix crash when showing current folder properties from context menu (Bug 129890).
Load JPEG rotated images using the right rotation directly instead of loading them first and rotate them after (Bug 117173).
Do not show the name of the current file in the status bar: it's already shown in the title bar and it was causing the mainwindow to be enlarged if the name was very long (Bug 127004).
Show the "rotate left" button in KParts.
Use Exiv2 instead of libexif to fix troubles with some JPEG (Bug 136112).
Fix crash when using Gwenview KPart in kwebdesktop (Bug 130379).
Fix content of KPart context menu when viewing remote images.
Do not let the KPart title get overriden when switching tabs.
Make context menu behavior coherent with KDE (Bug 136449).
Fix compilation with --enable-final (Bug 134919).
Do not loose selection when switching from detail to thumbnail view (Bug 126218).
In KPart, do not loose selection when starting a drag.
Fixed behavior of the middle-mouse button (Bug 134590).
Unless the user rotated the image, saving from the KPart now does a copy of the image instead of recompressing it. This ensures the KPart won't fail to save certain files (Bug 131833).

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