# &showimg; Handbook

Richard
Groult

    ric@jalix.org

2000
2002
Richard Groult
&FDLNotice;
2002-11-07
1.01.06
KDE
showimg
image
picture
viewer
graphics
browser
thumbnails

&showimg; is a full featured picture viewer for KDE 3

## Introduction

&showimg; is a picture viewer designed to run under KDE 3. I wanted to make an application that would gather the features I desired and that other picture viewers didn't have.

&showimg; enables you to browse your pictures quickly. Therefore it contains a browser panel and a file list (icons or thumbnails). Browse this list and choose single pictures for viewing.

&showimg; supports many picture formats and features special functions such as slideshows and duplicate files detection. See the features section to know more.

## &showimg; features

Here's what &showimg; can do :

- Image browsing (in list mode, thumbnail mode or one by one)

- Supports many image formats : JPEG, GIF, PNG (alpha channel support), MNG, BMP, TIFF, XPM, XBM and PNM (PBM, PGM and PPM)

- Full Screen mode

- Slideshow function

- Drag'n'drop support for file manipulations (within &showimg; and with external programs such as &konqueror;)

- Mouse wheel support

- Zip support (Zip files can be browsed as directories)

- Each interface panel (Browser panel , File list and Preview panel) can be moved and resized.

- Thumbnails can be cached in ~/.showimg directory

- Images can be pooled in Albums

- You can add additional description to each image.

- Exif support

- Duplicate files detection tool

- Batch format conversion tool

- Batch image renaming tool

- Image scanning tool

## User interface

### Main Window

Here's a screenshot of &showimg;
Main window

The &showimg; main window consists of three panels :

- The Browser panel

- The File list

- The Preview panel

Follow the links for detailed descriptions.

### Toolbar

- Up Up

  Go up to parent folder.

- Back Back

  Displays the previously viewed folder and its contents in the File list

- Forward Forward

  Advances you to a folder you previously viewed. You need to have used the Back button for the Forward button to be active.

- Go To Home Directory Go To Home Directory

  Displays home directory.

- Copy Copy

  Copies the image file currently displayed to the clipboard. This won't work with files that are contained in a zip archive.

- Paste Paste

  Pastes the image file from the clipboard to the current directory. If several directories are selected, the file is pasted into the default one ( its path is displayed on the title bar).

- Rotate Left Rotate Left

  Rotates the image 90 degrees counter clockwise

- Rotate Right Rotate Right

  Rotates the image 90 degrees clockwise

- Vertical Flip Vertical Flip

  Flips the image vertically

- Horizontal Flip Horizontal Flip

  Flips the image horizontally

- Slide Show Slide Show

  Displays images as a slide show presentation

- Previous Image Previous Image

  Displays the previous image in the file list

- Next Image Next Image

  Displays the next image in the file list

- Refresh Refresh

  Refresh file list

- Toggle Thumbnails Toggle Thumbnails

  Displays files with icons or thumbnails

- Stop Thumbnails Generation Stop Thumbnails Generation

  Stops the thumbnails generation in the file list

- Full Screen Mode Full Screen Mode

  Switch to Full Screen Mode

- Zoom In Zoom In

  Increases the size of the current image

- Zoom Out Zoom Out

  Reduces the size of the current image

- Fit to Screen Fit to Screen

  Displays the image at the largest size that fits the Preview panel

- Original Size Original Size

  Displays the image at normal size

## Using &showimg;

Please note that all the key combinations and panel locations that are described here can be customized.

### Browsing

#### Browser panel

At the top left corner of the main window is the Browser panel. From here you can browse all your filesystem hierarchy to select the directories and compressed files you want &showimg; to scan. Just click an item with left mouse button to select it and the image files it contains will be showned in the File list.

You can select several items (directories and/or compressed files), just click them while holding the Ctrl key. Their content will be merged in the File list.

#### File list

At the bottom left corner of the main window is the File list. This panel lists the picture files that are contained in the item(s) selected in the Browser panel. Files can be displayed as icons or as thumbnails, just switch between these two modes with the Toggle Thumbnails button. Click on a file to display it in the Preview panel.

#### Preview panel

This is the panel where pictures are displayed.

#### Panel Layout

You can move and resize each panel with your mouse.

You can choose standard layouts and reset your changes by choosing Settings in menubar, Configure showimg and Layout one after another.

### Viewing

Pictures can be viewed in the Preview panel or in Full Screen Mode. Switch between these two modes with the Enter key or the Full Screen Mode button.

#### Zooming

You can use the buttons Zoom In and Zoom Out or Ctrl+ and Ctrl- to zoom in and out.

You can zoom in a specified area by selecting it with middle mouse button: simply draw a rectangle to zoom in. To view your image in normal size, press middle mouse button anywhere on the picture.

#### Scrolling

While in zoom mode, hold down left mouse button and move your mouse around to scroll the picture.

### Managing your images

&showimg; offers you additional tools for managing your image collection besides just browsing the file system.

#### Album

An album is a list of images. You don't store images in there, just the names. It's like your mp3 playlist.

You can create a new empty album by selecting a directory in the Browser panel with right mouse button and choosing Create New... and Album. Add images by dragging them from the File list onto your album in the Browser panel.

#### Image Info

You can add additional information and description by selecting an image from the File list with your right mouse button and choosing Image Info.

This description is not stored in the image file itself but in one central text file in each directory. (For those of you who are interested: its name is descriptions.txt)

### Tools

#### Rename Series

From the File list, you can rename a selected range of files according to a specific pattern.

The pattern can (and should) contain some special characters :

- # Counter. Place it where you want numbers to appear in the file name. Include several '#' if you want leading zeros to be generated when needed. Use the Start Index value to change the counter starting number.

- $ Old file name. Place it where you want the old file name to be inserted (without extension).

- % Lower case old file name. Same as '$', but converts the old file name to lower case.

Please note that the pattern doesn't have to include the file extension.

Here is an example :

- Apple.jpg

- Sheep.jpg

- Tree.jpg

If we use a pattern such as pic_$_#, this file serie will be renamed as :

- pic_Apple_1.jpg

- pic_Sheep_2.jpg

- pic_Tree_3.jpg

#### Compare - the duplicate files detection tool

Compare searches your current directory completely for duplicate images. (so there's no need to select files).

Fast Comparison looks for files with exactly matching content while Approximate comparison is more intelligent and tolerant.

Only if there are duplicates found you get a new window which displays the results. Select items from the file list on the left to see the concerning identical files on the right list.

window with found duplicates
window with found duplicates

Delete removes only the selected file from the right list and leaves the left item untouched.

## Questions and Answers

The mouse wheel doesn't work like it should.

Check that IMWheel isn't running. As QT now has mouse wheel support, IMWheel is useless and causes problems in &showimg;.

I watched images with &showimg; while downloading them. Now most of these images have broken thumbnails.

Go to the concerning directory. Disable thumbnails. Choose Tools in menubar, Maintenance and Clear current directory cache one after another. Enable thumbnails again.

A more radical alternative to Clear current directory cache: Delete ~/.showimg directory.

## Credits and License

&showimg;

Program copyright 2000-2002 Richard Groult richard.groult@jalix.org

Contributors:

- Valerie (icon design) valerie.frappart@jalix.org

- Jean-Philippe Martin (icon design) jeanphilippemartin@club-internet.fr

- Benoist Gaston (beta-test and translation) bgaston@laposte.net

- Romain Vallet (beta-test and documentation) romain.vallet@jalix.org

- Alain Bidaud (web server administration and website design)

- Hape Schaal (german translation) hp.news@gmx.de

- Lots of people (Bug reports, advices and encouragements :)

Documentation copyright 2001, 2002 Romain Vallet romain.vallet@jalix.org and Hape Schaal hp.news@gmx.de

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &showimg;

&showimg; is a project from the Jalix association http://www.jalix.org. &showimg; can be found on the official website http://www.jalix.org/projects/showimg.

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &showimg;, you need KDE 3 and ImageMagick. zlib library is required in order to enable the zip archive browsing feature.

Required libraries:

- ImageMagick can be found on http://www.imagemagick.org.

- zlib can be found on http://www.gzip.org/zlib.

You can find a list of changes at http://www.jalix.org/projects/showimg.

### Compilation and installation

The file INSTALL in your showimg source package contains a detailed compilation and installation description.

Since &showimg; uses autoconf and automake you should have no trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the author.

## Glossary

Exif Metadata

  EXIF Metadata (Exchangeable Image File) refers to digital camera storage of image information using EXIF compressed files. EXIF compressed files use the baseline JPEG DCT format. The image data can be read by any application supporting JPEG, including web browsers, desktop presentation applications, document creation applications processor.

Cached thumbnails

  Cached thumbnails are stored in ~/.showimg directory so that they can be quickly displayed in the File list (rather than &showimg; regenerating them each time you browse images). See here if some of your thumbnails are broken.

&documentation.index;