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    #31
    IrfanView "Lite" would be just the executable i_view32.exe file. You don't need to install anything, just run it. It is under 500k big (or as I would consider it ... small)! None of the plug-ins are needed to do any of the fancy stuff (like the IrfanPaint, or like opening any of the movie or sound files) but it can still do a majority of the most needed things (like saving as most of the graphic formats).

    Try it. Learn it. Love it.
    I wish to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.
    Not like those passengers, in his car, when he drove over that cliff.

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      #32
      I do not think that size is really the issue ChuckE. IrfanView is not that easy for a newbie to master. Many find both the default settings and the interface unfamiliar. Most image viewers these days open by default with a thumbnail browser and you open the single image mode from there. The default actions of click and drag are a bit unusual too, and finding your way around the settings can be pretty daunting. It is rather like a Swiss army knife; you are still discovering new gadgets, years after you first got it.

      I keep thinking of Gimp Shop which is an attempt to offer all the functionality of Gimp with an interface that people can actually understand. That even has a plug-in called the De-wierdifier. Perhaps IrfanView could benefit from one of those?

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        #33
        Size wasn't my issue either, I just mentioned that because it shows that you don't have to go through an installation just to run IrfanView with just the basic functions.

        I understand that Digita_Ronin was looking for simplicity. Not needing a multi-file-folder installation really simplifies the installation.

        I wasn't talking about being a "Master" of IrfanView. As for all the basic functions, there are lots that IrfanView did, from my "Day1" (many years ago) without my needing to read any documentation. The very typical Menu commands are there (File, Edit, Image, Options, and View) for anybody to see. And Key Shortcuts show by just selecting any of those Menu commands. It really is not a hard program to learn the basics of.

        I think many of the noobies just allow themselves to be daunted by anything more than just a one-button mouse ("click? you mean the left button, or the right button?") or more than one option on a Menu bar. ("What's going to happen if I ... ?"; Hint: Try it. Don't like it? Edit>Undo!)

        As I ended before: "Try it. Learn it. Love it."
        I wish to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.
        Not like those passengers, in his car, when he drove over that cliff.

        Comment


          #34
          I'd have to agree with both of you. No matter what you do, people will always have different perceptions of things. There will be those who "get it" and those that don't. We all have been new users at some point, but we still looked past the daunting, explored, and experimented. When we help people, it is not magical. They can certainly look in the same places we look. I don't think we are masters either. We don't necessarily know how something will work when someone asks us. So, maybe it does have to do with people's willingness to try, or fear of breaking something. Either that, or people are marvelously efficient, and know that someone has an answer to their question.

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            #35
            Yeah, I agree with both, and now all 3, of us, too.
            I wish to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.
            Not like those passengers, in his car, when he drove over that cliff.

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              #36
              Focus on the basics

              I would prefer, if IV would focus on the basics first.
              That would be IMHO (in my humble opinion) the basic reading
              of various text formats like e.g. csv, csl and gedcom.

              I think the Nero plug-in is nice for some users,
              but not really necessary.

              Also, I did not even know, that some plug-ins are shareware.
              So maybe those shareware plug-ins should be kept
              in one of the 4 downloadable plug-in files separate.
              I'm not against it. If you need it, you need it.

              Also, IV is now playing on many fields at the same time:
              Not only, text, but, pictures, vector graphix, movie pictures
              and even sound like MP3.

              I dearly hope, Irfan can manage all those together.


              Also, the basic program is now at 1.3 MB.
              I like the ability to transfer IV to an old computer with floppy drive only.
              So - please Irfan - keep the size of the basic program under 1.4 MB.


              Thanks Irfan for all the good work!

              Comment


                #37
                Actually if you consider the executable alone, it is only 470KB.

                Comment


                  #38
                  Originally posted by lbdude View Post
                  I would prefer, if IV would focus on the basics first.
                  That would be IMHO (in my humble opinion) the basic reading
                  of various text formats like e.g. csv, csl and gedcom.

                  blah blah blah
                  Well, that has got to be one of the most overstated comments I've heard today.

                  Now I realize that these were words in your opinion, humble, perhaps, but IrfanView is a graphic viewer. Then you bring up the reading of various text formats:
                  CSV: Comma Separated Values, which is typically a textual format of a spreadsheet.
                  CSL: (there are SO MANY possibilities of whatever that is) but I am going to guess you mean Corel Designer Symbol Library; and
                  GedCom is a file format for genealogy data.

                  What makes you think that any graphic viewer, one that you are saying you have a to desire "focus on the basics first" and then you came up with those formats? Huh?

                  Basics? I think not.
                  I wish to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.
                  Not like those passengers, in his car, when he drove over that cliff.

                  Comment


                    #39
                    Right on...
                    0.6180339887
                    Rest In Peace, Sam!

                    Comment


                      #40
                      Originally posted by ChuckE View Post
                      Now I realize that these were words in your opinion, humble, perhaps, but IrfanView is a graphic viewer. Then you bring up the reading of various text formats:
                      CSV: Comma Separated Values, which is typically a textual format of a spreadsheet.......
                      That was my initial thought too but then I remembered that IrfanView will read and display text formats such as CSV if you just change the .csv to .txt . I do not know the other formats quoted but, if they are simple text formats then the same would be true of them also.

                      IrfanView will happily display an INI file if you add it to the custom file list. It treats that as a text file even though it is nowhere declared as being supported. I have quite often used it to take a quick look to see which INI file I am using and what is in it. In my Appdata/Irfanview folder there are 3 INI files that it will display plus one LST file (slideshow.lst) that it won't, even though it clearly could. For some CSV files it tells me that the header is WMF with the wrong extension and helpfully offers to change it. If I click yes it changes it to .wmf and then says that it cannot read the header.

                      There is a section devoted to Options for TXT files under Browsing/Editing. Would it be so unreasonable to add an option of the form "Treat as TXT INI|LST|BAT|VBS|CSV" or such other extensions that you care to add?

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                        #41
                        hmm. nice idea
                        0.6180339887
                        Rest In Peace, Sam!

                        Comment


                          #42
                          Originally posted by Mij View Post
                          ... but then I remembered that IrfanView will read and display text formats such as CSV if you just change the .csv to .txt . ... Would it be so unreasonable to add an option of the form "Treat as TXT INI|LST|BAT|VBS|CSV" or such other extensions that you care to add?
                          At first I thought, like you, it would not be unreasonable to add other lists of text-like formats to the "Treat as..." formats (if there were one), but then considered what would then happen. That any double-clicking of .TXT or .CSV formats would then open in IrfanView. (Geeze! kill me now!) That is certainly NOT what I would want. Sure, IrfanView can display those formats, but it does such a crappy job of it. It treats those text formats as if they were graphics. You can only select areas of the "text" as if it were a graphic. You can not select any real text. You can't even edit the opened text (or other text-like files) as text, since IrfanView deals with the file like it were a bit-mapped graphic. Not too useful.

                          Another bad display issue with text files is that if the line of text is lengthy, no carriage-returns, that if the line is exceeding long, it displays the text shrunk very small. Zooming in the area, to read it, forces you to left/right scroll the screen to read it. Not too friendly, is it?

                          No, no, no, I want text to open in either NotePad or WordPad, or any of the real text editors of my choosing. Let's leave IrfanView to do what it does best, graphics.

                          I don't mind that IV can open TXT or even CSV files (you know that Postscript files are also in text format) as long as I am in IV to begin with, but I don't want any associations to those formats assigned to IV.
                          Last edited by ChuckE; 20.07.2009, 07:43 AM.
                          I wish to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.
                          Not like those passengers, in his car, when he drove over that cliff.

                          Comment


                            #43
                            I don't really see your problem, ChuckE.

                            Files only open in Irfanview if they are associated. IrfanView offers tick boxes for associating graphic and multimedia file formats only so TXT is not included, nor would I expect any other text formats to be.
                            To view TXT files you have to be using the Load custom file types option under Extensions so there is no issue with text files opening in IrfanView when double clicking. I have both TXT and INI associated with Notepad.

                            Perhaps the list of file types after Treat as text.. could be implicitly added to the Custom file types, or perhaps you would need to add them to both lists.

                            Yes, I know that the text display format is pretty basic but, after zooming to 100% with Ctrl+H, it is fine for looking at the contents of an INI file and for the small TXT file of notes that I often keep in the same folders as the images themselves. It would be useful to me also for looking at the BAT and VBS files that I sometimes use with Irfanview. The Search feature in Irfanview is great for finding them. You then just click Show in Thumbnails or Show in Viewer to see what is in them.
                            Of course I have to use a text editor if I want to edit. I could set it as one of IrfanView's External editors if I used it a lot.
                            Last edited by Mij; 21.07.2009, 08:23 PM. Reason: to be pedantic added "multimedia" too

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                              #44
                              I believe this functionality is already here. Just use File>Open as>ASCII file... for those text formats. But, do realize the limitations of the image size you can create, so don't go overboard.

                              Comment


                                #45
                                I had forgotten that, Skippybox, but it is only part of the functionality since you can only open from the File menu and not by drag and drop, double click, from Explorer, from a Batch file, from a thumbnail and the many other ways of opening a file that we expect our favorite Swiss army knife to support.

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