sdl_img

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A "simple" image viewer based on stb_image.h (with the suggested animated GIF API extension).

It's "simple" in that it would work fine as a drop in replacement for most people since all the normal/expected behavior is there, but it has tons of extra and unique features for power users, especially on Linux/Unix and if you're comfortable with the terminal.

Download

Get the latest source or the latest release from Github

Goals / Focus

Controls/Basic Usage

./sdl_img image_name.jpg
./sdl_img -f image_name.jpg  (to start in full screen mode)

Will open image_name.jpg. On Windows that would be sdl_img.exe, but better to just right click on an image of each type and change the default application to be sdl_img.exe and then double clicking any image of that type will open it with sdl_img. Left and right will go through images in the same directory in alphabetical order.

Controls Description
Left (or Up) Previous image(s) or pan if appropriate
Right (or Down) Next image(s) or pan if appropriate
Space Next image(s)
CTRL+Space Previous image(s)
+/- Zoom in/out
CTRL + +/- Speed up or slow down an animated gif
CTRL + Direction Next or previous image(s) even when zoomed in
Mouse Wheel Zoom in/out
Left click + drag Pan around a zoomed in image
A Actual size
F Toggle fill screen mode
M Shuffle (Mix) the images (only in single mode)
N Sort the images by file name (only in single mode)
CTRL+N Sort the images by file path (only in single mode)
Z Sort the images by size (only in single mode)
T Sort the images by last modified (only in single mode)
P Pause/Unpause gif
CTRL + F or F11 Toggle Fullscreen
ESC Exit or "Back" similar to Android
L/R Rotate the current image left/right
H/V Flip the current image horizontally/vertically
Delete Delete the current image and move to the next (only in single mode)
Backspace Remove the current image and move to the next (only in single mode)
CTRL + 1 Single image mode
CTRL + 2 Double image mode
CTRL + 4 Quad image mode
CTRL + 8 8 image mode
CTRL + U Thumbnail mode
CTRL + I List mode
F1 - F10 Start a slideshow with 1 - 10 second delay

The most obvious unique features are the multi-image modes but others include slowing/speeding/pausing gifs, vim inspired thumbnail mode, shuffle/sort etc.

Within each image mode the basic controls work on all images simultaneously unless a specific image is selected by hitting 1-n and then they operate only on that image, ie cycling, zooming, fit will only effect that image. To return to "all at once" mode, hit 0. In this way you can compare multiple images simultaneously with a single viewer instance (even if they aren't sequential alphabetically). Switching from a higher mode to a lower will show the first n images of the higher mode where n is the lower number. An exception is if you have an image selected and go to single mode, that is the image that will be used.

The slideshow feature is smart enough to wait long enough to finish any gif being displayed even if that takes longer than the specificed delay. ESC ends the slideshow. All other controls work while in slideshow mode, meaning starting a slideshow does not automatically toggle to fullscreen, it will run in double, quad or oct-image mode, or even on a single image selected within those modes.

Something to note about the rotation functionality are that while it will rotate any image, it will only ask whether you're sure you want to save single frame images because stb_image_write does not support gifs at all, let alone animated gifs. It will try to detect the type from the extension and output that type if possible, otherwise jpg is the default.

Advanced Usage

./sdl_img -l list_of_images (urls or local paths or mixed, doesn't matter)
./sdl_img image1.jpg image2.png
./sdl_img image1.jpg -s 4
./sdl_img -l list_of_urls -c ./custom_cache_dir

Or any combination of those options, ie

./sdl_img image.jpg -l list1 -s 8 example.com/image.jpg -l list3 image4.gif -f

The option -s [delay] means start in slideshow mode with the given delay in seconds. If delay is not 1-10 or is missing, delay will be set to 3 seconds.

When using any of these modes, all the images will be collected in a list in the order they're given (not sorted like basic usage). For now, if you have multiple url images with the same name, downloaded on the same day, the one downloaded last will simply overwrite the earlier ones in the cache. This is because the cache does create subdirectories by date of the form YYYY-MM-DD for easy browsing/cleaning.

There is also the -c/--cache option which allows you to specify a custom cache location (only for this instance) which can be useful if you know you want to save these images and don't want to bother copying them from the normal cache later.

Building

On Linux, just run ./build.sh for debug, ./build_release.sh for release.

On Windows I use MSYS2. I don't like/use IDE's and I can't stand the Window's command line. MSYS2 allows me to have the same environment and tools as Linux. So it's basically the same, ./build_win.sh and ./build_win_release.sh.

Packaging

I'll expand this section later, once I get to 1.0 and have packages and more finalized packaging processes but I'm using NSIS to create my windows installer and fpm on linux to create linux packages. Maybe I'll even try something like AppImage or Flatpak long term just for fun.

Naming Issues

So I know there are some issues with the name.

Originally sdl_img only used SDL2 and stb_image; stb_image and stb_imv already exist, so I chose sdl_img rather than stb_img. Unfortunately, SDL_image and SDL2_image (libsdl-image1.2 and libsdl2-image in repos) also exist so there's a minor clash there too.

Now I'm using the following libraries: SDL2, SDL2_gfx stb_image, stb_image_write, stb_image_resize libcurl nuklear (immediate mode GUI library) WjCryptLibMd5

So potential names are stb_img, sdl_img, sdl2_img, sdl_imv, nuklear_img, or some cool original name that I'm not creative enough to think of. I'm open to suggestions.

TODO/IDEAS

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