Reported Minor bug opening new bitmap (?) file on desktop

[XCLN]

Symptom: right clicking on an empty spot of the desktop, choose "new", select irfanview BMP file (only choice, I'd prefer jpg), get a new "New Bitmap Image" icon and file on desktop. When opening it get the error " C:\user\staff\desktop\New Bitmap Image.bmp: can't read file header! Unknown file format or file not found! "
I can ignore that message and proceed. .. but this may be good to fix.
For installation I chose install for all users, select all images ... and the UAC is off. O and yes I installed (and run) as admin.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I don't know why this item is added to the New menu, and I get the same error on Windows XP.

All images opened in IrfanView are bitmaps (in memory), they only becomes a JPG image when you save it to disk. Compare the size in memory to the size on disk for any image that you can open in IrfanView.

I don't know why anyone needs to create a new image on the desktop at all. IrfanView is an image viewer, not an editor. If you do create a new image from the Image menu you have to specify the image dimensions and colour depth, and all you get is a blank canvas of one colour.

What size and type of image would the windows desktop command create?

[Mij]

Interesting. What appears to be created on the desktop is a completely empty file (0 bytes). When you double click the icon it is sent to whatever program is associated with the .bmp extension. Programs that have a "New" option on the File menu generally seem to handle it, opening a default version of what would be produced by clicking File >New. In Microsoft Paint that was 576x432 pixels, in Paint.net it was 800x600. Microsoft Photogallery (does not have File >New) shows a message "Photogalllery can't display this photo because it is an empty file". Faststone Image viewer opened a blank (dark) screen. I could not open the Draw board to draw anything on it, but I was able to paste an image to it from the clipboard.

So what is right for Irfanview? Display a helpful error message like Photogallery, open an empty undefined size canvas where you can paste an image as Faststone, open the dialog normally seen when you select Image> Create new empty image (you could then either paint on it using Irfanpaint or paste an image to it)? Or is it OK to just leave it as it is displaying a not very helpful error message?

[SkyyTek]

It doesn't seem like a bug to me. This is no different than New >> Text Document. That will simply create a new 0 byte text document which you can then open, rename and edit with whatever you like to use.

It does seem a bit pointless, unless you had an image in the clipboard you wanted to subsequently paste to it, or you intended to use something to then open and edit your new file.

[Mij]

It doesn't seem like a bug to me. This is no different than New >> Text Document. That will simply create a new 0 byte text document which you can then open, rename and edit with whatever you like to use.
It does seem a bit pointless, unless you had an image in the clipboard you wanted to subsequently paste to it, or you intended to use something to then open and edit your new file.

Whether it is or is not a bug depends only on your definition of a bug. What seems more important is whether Irfanview ought to support this particular Windows feature. Since the Create new empty image feature already exists in Irfanview, I doubt if it would be a big deal to check for an empty file and launch that feature automatically when detected.

I would find it useful. I often capture a screenshot using the PrtScr button and then want to view and save it from the Clipboard before it is overwritten. Since the topic was raised I have been using that New bitmap option from the Desktop with Faststone image viewer. For this it does not matter what size canvas is created initially because it is resized automatically when an image is pasted from the Clipboard. Irfanview does that from Create new empty image too.

Irfanview stores NewImageHeight and Width in the ini file so default dimensions could easily be preset anyway should it be important - if the new image was being created for making a Title slide perhaps, or a collage. That is one reason why I would like to be able to use IrfanView instead of Faststone. The other is that I usually want to crop a screenshot before saving it and, with its "live" selection box Irfanview is much quicker.