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    Requested Configurable thumbnail browsing

    Hi there!

    First of all a lot of thanks for Irfanview. It has been my image-viewing buddy since v2.85 or so, and I will only change if they threaten to pull out my fingernails or something, lol.

    Now on to my feature request:

    For my activities I often need to very quickly look for matches between a picture that I am editing in Photoshop, and candidate-pictures in folders. For this specific task I'm currently NOT using Irfanview ( ) but the software VUEprint, because it offers exactly what I need for this, which is:

    - I can quickly (re)size the window in which I will see the thumbnails, so I can adapt it to the size of the picture that I'm editing in Photoshop (i.e., Photoshop is visible in the background on the left of the screen, while some part of the right of the screen is filled by the thumbnails-screen)

    - screen is used optimally because by tapping the ESC-key, all toolbars and scrollbars etc. are removed from the window with thumbnails; this gives opportunity to show the thumbnails as large as possible. Basically it becomes a black background with pictures and the filename under it, nothing else. (display of filenames is also a big plus since I know where I am approximately in the folder)

    - I can configure the background-color of the thumbnail-windows (to black, for optimal contrast)

    - I can configure the amount of rows/columns of thumbnails that will be shown (2 X 3 rows of thumbnails for optimal balance between browsing FAST, and still seeing enough details in the thumbnails to judge whether I have a "match" or not)

    - very quick switch (point to thumbnail and click) between this thumbnail- view, and a view in which the selected thumbnail is displayed fitting optimally into the size of the thumbnail window; in this view, I can then easily mirror/rotate the picture (which is often necessary to find out how well it matches the picture that I'm editing)

    It would be cool if functionality similar to this would be built-in so I wouldn't have to BETRAY Irfanview every day. ;-)

    JoH

    #2
    This is quite a list, so I don't have a quick comment on that, but I wonder :
    If you want to compare two bitmaps, why using the thumbnail function instead of the single file-view ?
    0.6180339887
    Rest In Peace, Sam!

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by Sam_Zen View Post
      This is quite a list, so I don't have a quick comment on that, but I wonder :
      If you want to compare two bitmaps, why using the thumbnail function instead of the single file-view ?
      Hi, thanks for the reaction!

      Yeah, it's a long list but I justed wanted to explain how this works in VUEprint right now to give a good idea what I'm at...

      Of course it's possible to simply use the single file-view, but the drawback of this approach is that browsing goes slower (no less than SIX times slower than with 2 rows of 3 thumbs). When I'm talking about browsing through pictures, I'm talking about hundreds to thousands of them (matching pictures for photomanips is a tough thing). The difference in time spent is just too big. Also, I'm not talking here about "comparing" in the sense of finding out whether the pics are *alike* or not. It's about judging whether certain features in picture 2 are suitable for inclusion into picture 1

      The other neat aspect of this VUEprint-feature is that it automatically optimally sizes the thumbnails to use all the screenspace available. I mean, 6 on half a screen is quite a bit bigger than regular "thumbnails" which would be much too small to accurately judge whether a picture is usable or not.

      The background color is important to more or less accurately and quickly judge colors/contrast.

      Anyways: ALL the little points I put in the first mail have their considerable advantages in my situation.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by JoH View Post
        ...

        - I can quickly (re)size the window in which I will see the thumbnails, so I can adapt it to the size of the picture that I'm editing in Photoshop (i.e., Photoshop is visible in the background on the left of the screen, while some part of the right of the screen is filled by the thumbnails-screen)

        - I can configure the background-color of the thumbnail-windows (to black, for optimal contrast)

        - I can configure the amount of rows/columns of thumbnails that will be shown (2 X 3 rows of thumbnails for optimal balance between browsing FAST, and still seeing enough details in the thumbnails to judge whether I have a "match" or not)


        ...


        - JoH
        Hi JoH,

        at least some of your requests are already there ...

        - window resize - no prob
        - for background colour go to OPTIONS-->Set Thumbnail Options
        - while you are there, set the thumbnail size to, for example, 150x150 which gives me a nice 2x5 thumbs column in the right hand side of my screen.

        Good luck,
        J.

        currently running 4.56 / 32 bit

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by jazzman View Post
          Hi JoH,

          at least some of your requests are already there ...

          - window resize - no prob
          - for background colour go to OPTIONS-->Set Thumbnail Options
          - while you are there, set the thumbnail size to, for example, 150x150 which gives me a nice 2x5 thumbs column in the right hand side of my screen.

          Good luck,
          J.
          Hmmm.. I admit we're actually getting closer here!

          Maybe I missed the thumbnail-size setting (or it didn't have this range of possible sizes in a previous version). I'm getting pretty good results with 350x350 or 400x400. Another good thing is that the Irfanview window itself can be sized to have the same size/position as the thumbnail window so when I click a thumbnail the Irfanview window occupies the same part of the screen (and doesn't obscure my Photoshop in the background)

          Here's what I'm still missing:

          - I don't seem to be able to configure the color of the filename text (only thumb background and window background color can be chosen). For best judging of the thumbnails both should be black, but in that case the filenames are currently no longer visible? Being able to configure this would certainly help.

          - when the mouse is anywhere over the thumbnail window, a pop-up appears with information of the thumbnail under it. This is cool, but for my purposes it is seriously distracting. An option to turn off this behaviour couldn't be too complex to implement?

          - is there a shortcut key to completely remove any toolbars/window borders in order to maximize the space available to show the thumbs?

          - to progress to the next "page" of thumbnails, I can now use the cursor keys, <pagedown> or click inside the scrollbar. The two first methods have the drawback that they "highlight" a thumbnail (so at that moment I can not properly "judge" that particular highlighted picture unless I select another one). The "click scollbar" method has the disadvantage that it doesn't scroll the page "with complete thumbnails at once". Sometimes you end up with just part of the next thumbnails visible on screen (and you have to finetune the scrolling until it is properly positioned).

          Several ways to get around this:

          1) another effect of "highlighting" instead of the current "grey-out" effect. Instead, maybe only subtly highlight the filename instead of the thumbnail itself? Making this optional might be best because with smaller thumbs (like thumbnails are mostly used) highlighting the complete thumb is probably much clearer

          2) making it such that clicking the scrollbar will always progress in such a way that whole thumbnails are visible

          I also have to say that, even when using the cursor-keys to browse through the thumbs, often parts of the thumbnails are being cut-off. That is a problem, too. I really need them to be completely visible on screen when I browse through them.

          - a really serious problem: when I switch to another program, and then back to the thumbnail window, it has repositioned itself to the first file in the folder instead of keeping the last browsed thumbs in focus. That is a serious problem which makes it totally unusable for me at the moment...

          - in comparison with VUEprint the use of available screensize is far less optimal. I mean that VUEprint seems to "pack" the thumbnails much tighter, doesn't sacrifice as much room for borders around the thumbs and stuff. So it would be cool to be able to optimize this by being able to specify some of this stuff. And like I said it would also make quite a difference if there was a shortcut to effectively eliminate ALL borders/toolbars/scrollbars/window-edges with one keypress

          - related to this last point: VUEprint doesn't work with pre-defined thumbnail sizes, but rather calculates this size starting from how many you tell it to show in its window at once. So when you resize the thumbnail window, it dynamically adjusts the size of the thumbnails to make the chosen number of thumbnails fit. This results in optimal size of the thumbnails depending on how big you make the window. Having this kind of feature as an alternative for the fixed thumbnail sizes would help.

          But it looks like quite a bit of progress could be made with fairly simple changes?

          Comment


            #6
            Having read all of your wishes about IrfanView, in comparation of VUEprint leads me to one conclusion: IrfanView isn't the graphical program for your taste. You should judge IV on its available options and less on the option that aren't there. I use Photoshop and thousands of images too, but I use the possibilities of IV with great pleasure. Viewing and converting, that's what IV is about. Slideshows are not blurred as other programs produce them. Browsing is not it's strongest point. That's why this option isn't standard shown on the tool bar, proving the modesty of Irfan Skiljan. A rightclick on a folder, selecting: Browse with IrfanView however (the fastest way to show the content of it) is a thorough enclosed force of our beloved small (but great) viewer.

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