A word to the over-eager

[Sam_Zen]

I second this consideration. I guess Irfan View was build to act as a real versatile 'viewer' for all kinds of formats.
Viewing a still, or a sequence of frames, even 'viewing' sound formats, and the graphic representation of text.
Of course I take such existing abilities into consideration, but e.g. I mainly I associate sound files to other apps in the first place, but using IV still in the list of playback options for specific occasions.

[j7n]

I believe Irfan should be a graphics viewer and touch other file types only to get some form of pictures from them. Archive support also should be minimal, intended for viewing picture sets, but not unpacking exotic formats such as WAD. I'm glad it is kinda this way already – with plugins supporting the "secondary" formats. But I think the interface should also be cleaned up from the plugin functions (file formats in Open dialog and menus such as EMail), with those options only appearing if the installed plugin requests so.

There was once an application claiming to support every format in the world, be it audio, graphics, video and I think even some text/printing formats. It was Konvertor, a very unstable program and it didn't fully support any of those formats. The list of file extensions seemed more important to the authors with entries such as JPEG and JPG.

[Spambanjo]

Well what about a wizard for the noobs??

VLC is a feature rich video player capable of almost anything relating to that type of media... and that has taken noobs into account with the wizards.

I personally think Iview is fine too. It's perfect for me. Evertything is where you would expect coming from a graphic design background.

I recently switched to Ubuntu, and really miss Iview, but still recommend my friends & customers use it for their batch tasks. It's more difficult than ever to talk a newbie through batch processing a folder full of folders full of images while maintaining directory structure. Especially when I haven't used the program for months and can't have it running in front of me. I would love to see a Linux version.

A wizard would make life so much easier for me, and for them.

[matera]

Steer them to the online help and tutorial sites. What most of them need to learn first is wtf is directory structure anyway (rolls eyes), they have never seen anything but a mass of big eye-conz. You think you have fun - I have to walk people through cr*p with Outhouse Espresso when I've used Foxmail for years. LOL. If I could get Ubuntu to deal with my modem... ack, but I would miss a lot of other things too. Why I dual-boot

[j7n]

I think we have a good real world example of what IrfanView should not become: recent incarnations of ACDSee32. Until year 1999 this program was a small viewer whose positive points were: speed, progressive loading which also gives illusion of speed, previewing very large images without the necessary RAM, nicely v-synced scrolling even on a slow Pentium 1. But now it's a huge pile of commercialized crap weighing 25 MB. A good photo editor it is not and a small and portable viewer it ceased to be with version 3.1.

[Paparazzi]

Well, actually, IV was meant to be a viewer and towards that goal Irfan keeps adding more formats. If he does not do add more formats, where is the progress going to be??? Would additional builds not be just bug fixes?

He gave us the ability to save in alternate formats and a lil bit of basic editing too, but I guess we've not been satisfied and hence the support for Irfan Paint! Yeah, man is by nature never satisfied. When I get something, I wish that IF ONLY this other lil feature were there ... and it goes on! Now, multiply that "IF ONLY" by the no. of fanatic users out there

Personally, I think that the best option for now is:
1) Keep the basic download as is.
2) Change the setup options of the plugins to have it install only some of the more basic ones by default ... (like EXIF, JPG Transform and maybe one or two others). The rest of the plugins could be chosen under "custom" setup option.

Jpg transform is a 61KB addition and I've always wondered why the code is not just built into IV in such a way that the regular rotate code is modified to automatically detect the type of file and if it is jpg, then just do a loseless transformation (after all, no one wants loss of image quality). This way, the would be one plugin less and part of the rotate code is reused, thereby saving a couple of bytes!

Actually, if EXIF & JPG Transform were part of the basic download package, I would never bother with the plugins package.

[matera]

"Hint-hint" he implied. LOL. Of course one can download the plugins in one zip file or in smaller groups, and drop in only what one needs from the zip file(s). It's a simple enough job with a real file manager (not Windwoes Explorer). I usually keep the whole herd, though I don't use anywhere near all, because I never know what I might encounter next. I cut down to the bare basics for my portable version.

[emily12]

I wholeheartedly agree. Remove some "features" and simplify the interface.

[Skippybox]

Why are you worried?

If IrfanView was already as great as you all say it was, then why are you always upgrading to the lastest and greatest version? If you aren't interested in more features, what are you finding wrong with IrfanView that you keep doing so? If you were satisfied with, for example version 3.75, then it shouldn't matter to you whether new features are added in coming versions. New users should choose a simplified earlier version, unless they require some additional functionality, or are affected by a bug.

Certainly if IrfanView wants to be competitive with the latest viewers in the market it needs to improve its feature set. Otherwise, it risks falling behind. Also, IrfanView is intended to be a tool for users. If the majority of them want this added functionality, then it should be added. In the end, it is what the users want. I'm not going to argue with Irfan either, as he has had the final decision to put all these features in. If he thinks its alright, then I'm alright with it. Just about every software (or product) I can think of, adds to its feature set with each new release; that is what has been defined as progress in business. I wholeheartedly agree that a feature-packed program can be intimidating, and require way too much of a learning curve to master, even for advanced users. However, in the end I do think a powerful program is better than a simple program, because it gets the job done. I don't think anyone using IrfanView really just wants a fast version of Windows Picture Viewer!

I think a light version is interesting and common practice, but again couldn't you just use a previous version that was lighter and faster? This idea may be better than trying to get people to only use the basic features in a present version, since it eliminates the intimidation. Sure, you could try using basic features, but I think its still difficult straining out the other features. On the other hand, plenty of software comes in flavors, especially Microsoft's, so a choice of levels based on skill and use would be acceptable. I just don't think Irfan wants to put quite that much effort into this project! I love the unique and advanced features that Irfanview has and would like to enjoy it even more by adding the features it lacks. As for making a separate IrfanView product for each type of media, this would really actually make it less simple to use.

Perhaps the best idea would be an interface that is configurable. Allow the user to use just one Irfanview program, that can turn on/off all the advanced features or individual sets of features. That way, they would be hidden everywhere in the program, allowing for a single program to be tailored to a user of any level. Since, the interface would be quickly and easily configurable, even a single user could hide/unhide features on the fly! This is probably a bit of work for a programmer, but I think it is the best/easiest way to simultaneously advance IrfanView, while not alienating any of the current or future users. What do you think?

Please provide some feedback.

1. What features do you enjoy in Irfanview?
2. What do you like about IrfanView best besides that its freeware?
3. What do you think Irfanview needs to do better that it already hasn't done, other than adding new features?
4. If no further versions of IrfanView were released, would IrfanView remain the best viewer and for how long?
5. Which version of IrfanView was the best?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

What I want for future releases is some streamlining of the program:

1. Customisation is great because it allows you to hide features that you don't need. I do this extensively in PagePlus, which has stacks of features that I never use.

2. Remove all of the features that don't work well — multimedia support is a prime candidate. There are far better solutions for viewing video or playing audio. Features that are broken or lack lustre only create a support headache. Removing them solves that headache and allows development resources to be reallocated to the core features. It also free up some space on the interface.

3. Redesign the options interface, clearing out some of the less useful options, or put them where they are easier to find.

One man's bloat is another man's useful feature, but IrfanView should always load instantly. The day it starts getting slow to load is the day I look for another solution.

Software evolves gradually, so one should always upgrade to get speed and stability improvements if the programmer is doing his job well. However, when asking for features, which is what this thread is about, one should consider whether a feature is needed or not. Why use IrfanView to load PDF files, for example? Everyone has a PDF Viewer for that.

[jlous]

Just a provocation

I'm not a extreme as this may sound at first,
but just to ruffle a few feathers:

There _is_ a place for swiss army knives.
They fill a _need_ that professional tools do not.
A swiss army knife is _exactly_ what IV is and should be.

Hah.
Now for the reservations:
Of course the scope should still be limited, and the
features well integrated.

The real SAK contains tools that are (or were at some point
deemed) generally handy to have about in the target situation
(out in the field), and small enough to fit in the damn thing
while still letting the thing itself fit in your pocket. It
does not contain a chainsaw, tent, or or bicycle pump, or
torx drivers.

IV is a swiss army knife for image viewing and handling.
It does the trivial things pretty well, some medium things
OK, ant it's fast (fits in your pocket). And that's it.

Nearly everything it does is done better by _something_,
but in its niche it's an unbeatable allrounder.

To make it all more tangible:
* Sure, drop audio/video support
(or at least don't spend any time improving them).
* Support any image format known to man, at least for
reading, and for some important ones for writing.
Important here can be either widely used _or_
supporting some important feature other formats
don't have.
* Improve conversions to retain more of original if
export format supports it (e.g. alpha masks)
* Support and continue to improve important basic
image operations (scale, crop, bit depth, colors etc.)
* Support and continue to improve and streamline
batch conversion (many people use IV solely for this feature)
* Support but simplify streamline contact sheet/gallery
generation. This is not core, but still an important
image management task: do it OK. That is, easy to use
and with good result, but not very advanced.
* For the love of god clean up the configurations.

[Sam_Zen]

Agreed ..

[RockDoctor]

OT : I remember a floppy being 640 KB, I guess you're referring to a diskette of 1.4 MB

Oh, you mean the *little* floppies. It's only a few years since I had to let go of my PDP with it's twin-floppy deck : two discs of single-sided, 8" diameter, 110kb goodness.
(It also had two hard drives : 2.5MB each, with a total of nearly 40MB of available storage, if you could bother to cross the room to get the appropriate platter-set out of the cupboard and mount it.)

[Ladymaggic]

IrfanView is my Swiss Knife and more...and its a very good one

I hope you are NOT knocking this excellent Swiss Knife...

[Digital_Ronin]

One more vote for IV Light

I like IrfanView... I enjoy all the features of the full version with all the plugins. Yet, I still think that the idea of a "Light" or maybe a "n00b" version with simplified functionality would be nice.