IMGV. The Image Viewer no one asked for.

Written in C++.

Only for Linux.

With features I wanted in my dream image viewer.

Supports more than 100 file formats, thanks to ImageMagick integration.

Total lines of code excluding the external libraries (Sol, rapidjson, qmarkdowntextedit) is 5300 lines (source and header file).

Table of Contents

1. Screenshots
2. Demo
3. Introduction
4. Features
5. Supported Image Formats
6. Installation
7. Theming
8. Configuration
9. Changelogs and Bug fixes
10. Todo
11. Thanks

Screenshots

R E T R O artwork by Xeno_Sid.

Demo

Link for the demo

Introduction

IMGV is an image viewer aiming for the balance between minimalism and features. The aim is simple. Display IMAGES....quickly, switch between them, do whatever the user wants it to do (through a little bit of scripting).

Ehh....Why ?

Why ? I never liked any of the image viewers existing for linux, with the exception of nomacs. I did not like the super minimal approach of sxiv/nsxiv image viewer, and I did not like the full blown features of heavy image viewer. I just want something to open, click, press and it should do what I need it to do. This pretty much does the job for me.

Why the name IMGV ?

IMaGe Viewer ~ IMGV. Original.

Features

1. Minimally intrusive user-interface

2. Everything is customizable

3. Session file support

   Session files allow you to group images together to open it at a later point. NOTE: Previously session files were just plain text files, but since the addition of notes features, session files are now stored as json files with the extension .imgv.

4. Command line arguments support.

   • -n or --no-config load the software without any lua configuration
   • -l or --list-sessions list all the sessions
   • -s or --session takes path to a session file. Loads all the images of that session

5. Notes

8. Image Properties (with EXIF support)

9. Color Picker

2024-08-15.16-20-56.mp4

10. Minimap

2024-08-15.16-14-56.mp4

11. Tags

Tags allow you to group images inside a session into a kind of sub-groups so that you can view these groups easily. You can filter them using the filter option in the thumbnail panel to view images beloging to the tags if there are any in the session.

12. STDIN capable (pipe capable)

You can "pipe into" imgv to open the files. Best example is editing image using ImageMagick and then pipeing it into imgv to view it.

magick some-file.jpg -blur 0x8 - | imgv -

Supported Image Formats

IMGV uses ImageMagick image library for decoding image formats, which therefore means that imgv supports all the image formats supported by ImageMagick. Check this page for the list of all supported Image Format.

(Before imgv 2.0l Qts default image decoders were used to load the images.)

Exhaustive supported image format

• ART: PFS: 1st Publisher
• AVI: Microsoft Audio/Visual Interleaved
• AVS: AVS X image
• BMP: Microsoft Windows bitmap
• CGM: Computer Graphics Metafile
• CIN: Kodak Cineon Image Format
• CMYK: Raw cyan, magenta, yellow, and black samples
• CMYKA: Raw cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and alpha samples
• CUR: Microsoft Cursor Icon
• CUT: DR Halo
• DCM: Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) image
• DCX: ZSoft IBM PC multi-page Paintbrush image
• DIB: Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap
• DNG: Digital Negative
• DOT: Graph Visualization
• DPX: SMPTE Digital Moving Picture Exchange
• EMF: Microsoft Enhanced Metafile (32-bit)
• EPDF: Encapsulated Portable Document Format
• EPI: Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format
• EPS: Adobe Encapsulated PostScript
• EPS2: Adobe Level II Encapsulated PostScript
• EPS3: Adobe Level III Encapsulated PostScript
• EPSF: Adobe Encapsulated PostScript
• EPSI: Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format
• EPT: Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format with TIFF preview
• FAX: Group 3 TIFF
• FIG: FIG graphics format
• FITS: Flexible Image Transport System
• FPX: FlashPix Format
• GIF: CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format
• GPLT: Gnuplot plot files
• GRAY: Raw gray samples
• HPGL: HP-GL plotter language
• HTML: Hypertext Markup Language with a client-side image map
• ICO: Microsoft icon
• INFO: Format and characteristics of the image
• JBIG: Joint Bi-level Image experts Group file interchange format
• JNG: Multiple-image Network Graphics
• JP2: JPEG-2000 JP2 File Format Syntax
• JPC: JPEG-2000 Code Stream Syntax
• JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format
• MAN: Unix reference manual pages
• MAT: MATLAB image format
• MIFF: Magick image file format
• MONO: Bi-level bitmap in least-significant-byte first order
• MNG: Multiple-image Network Graphics
• MPEG: Motion Picture Experts Group file interchange format (version 1)
• M2V: Motion Picture Experts Group file interchange format (version 2)
• MPC: Magick Persistent Cache image file format
• MSL: Magick Scripting Language
• MTV: MTV Raytracing image format
• MVG: Magick Vector Graphics
• OTB: On-the-air Bitmap
• P7: Xv's Visual Schnauzer thumbnail format
• PALM: Palm pixmap
• PAM: Common 2-dimensional bitmap format
• PBM: Portable bitmap format (black and white)
• PCD: Photo CD
• PCL: HP Page Control Language
• PCX: ZSoft IBM PC Paintbrush file
• PDB: Palm Database ImageViewer Format
• PDF: Portable Document Format
• PFA: Postscript Type 1 font (ASCII)
• PFB: Postscript Type 1 font (binary)
• PGM: Portable graymap format (gray scale)
• PICON: Personal Icon
• PICT: Apple Macintosh QuickDraw/PICT file
• PIX: Alias/Wavefront RLE image format
• PNG: Portable Network Graphics
• PNM: Portable anymap
• PPM: Portable pixmap format (color)
• PS: Adobe PostScript file
• PS2: Adobe Level II PostScript file
• PS3: Adobe Level III PostScript file
• PSD: Adobe Photoshop bitmap file
• PTIF: Pyramid encoded TIFF
• PWP: Seattle File Works multi-image file
• RAD: Radiance image file
• RGB: Raw red, green, and blue samples
• RGBA: Raw red, green, blue, and alpha samples
• RLA: Alias/Wavefront image file
• RLE: Utah Run length encoded image file
• SCT: Scitex Continuous Tone Picture
• SFW: Seattle File Works image
• SGI: Irix RGB image
• SHTML: Hypertext Markup Language client-side image map
• SUN: SUN Rasterfile
• SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics
• TGA: Truevision Targa image
• TIFF: Tagged Image File Format
• TIM: PSX TIM file
• TTF: TrueType font file
• TXT: Raw text file
• UIL: X-Motif UIL table
• UYVY: Interleaved YUV raw image
• VICAR: VICAR rasterfile format
• VIFF: Khoros Visualization Image File Format
• WBMP: Wireless bitmap
• WMF: Windows Metafile
• WPG: Word Perfect Graphics File
• XBM: X Windows system bitmap, black and white only
• XCF: GIMP image
• XPM: X Windows system pixmap
• XWD: X Windows system window dump
• YCbCr: Raw Y, Cb, and Cr samples
• YCbCrA: Raw Y, Cb, Cr, and alpha samples
• YUV: CCIR 601 4:1:1

Installation

Install from release package

Check out the releases page for packages.

Ubuntu users

The DEB package has been built using Ubuntu 24.04 base. It should work on most of the modern ubuntu base distro.

Arch Linux users

• download the PKGBUILD file and install the program using the following command.

mkdir imgv && wget https://github.com/dheerajshenoy/imgv/releases/download/1.2.0/PKGBUILD && makepkg -si

• download the pkg.tar.zst file directly from the releases page and install it using pacman -U <downloaded-file-name>

Flatpak

Install instruction for your distro can be found here

• hazzle free, no need to download any stupid dependencies, no BS, just straight to the point.
• download the flatpak from the releases page.
• NOTE: The user configuration and sessions in the case of imgv flatpak are stored at ~/.var/app/org.dheerajshenoy.imgv/config/
• Also, to do the theming for the flatpak version, please check link1, link2

Build from Source

1. This software depends on the following programs/libraries. Install them first.

   1. Qt (GUI)
   2. lua
   3. webp (for WEBP image support)

2. Run the following set of commands

git clone https://github.com/dheerajshenoy/imgv.git
cd imgv
mkdir build
cmake -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
cd build && make
sudo make install

These commands do the following things

• Clone this repo.
• Go the project directory make a build directory and run the cmake command to generate the makefile
• Finally run the make command and also install it system wide

Theming

The theme for IMGV depends on the theme set for Qt6 applications. There is a handy tool called qt6ct. Install it and configure the theme and it will be applied to this software also.

For flatpak version of the app, the theming is a bit of a problem. It can be done, but there are few steps, which can be done following few tutorials like link1, link2.

Configuration

IMGV can be configured using the lua programming language. config.lua file should have already been created at the config location. A config.lua file can be found in the repo which lists out all the options along with their different options. Just move the file to the config directory and it will be loaded the next time you open imgv.

Note that if the keybindings table is present in the Defaults table, then default keybindings will not be loaded.

Changelogs and Bug Fixes

• 21 Aug 2024

  • Remove -i or --input flag. As remaining files are taken as input, no need for this flag, because it's redundant.

• 19 Aug 2024

  • Started working on the Wiki page
  • Dropped .imgv extension from the session name in the session open menu
  • Fix: Crash when opening session files from the session open menu
  • Fix: no files session open crash
  • Fix: Imagewidget drop image crash
  • Alternate colors option for thumbnail background
  • text wrap option for filename in thumbnail panel
  • Show mouse position in color picker

• 18 Aug 2024

  • Added CMYK, HSLA, and alpha to HSV, RGB for the color picker
  • Fix: Reload color picker pixmap on loading an image
  • Added copy to clipboard on doubleclick support for color picker colors
  • Use ImageMagick library to load images and not use Qt6 in-built image decoders. This allows for larger support of images for imgv. Check here for the supported formats.
  • Export image EXIF metadata into JSON with mini and readable version.
  • Thumbnail panel layout - left (default), right, top and bottom.
  • Added lua configuration for thumbnail panel layout and support for specifying image cache

• 17 Aug 2024

  • Add const, noexcept to functions.
  • Make function arguments const if not being changed.
  • Pass function arguments by reference and allow function arguments to get value by rvalue.

• 16 Aug 2024

  • STDIN images now create temporary files which are destroyed when the program exits.
  • Make small functions inline for increased performance.
  • Change Image properties layout to QFormLayout for less code.
  • Open session using just the name (with or without the .imgv extension) or full path.
  • Add fit to width, height menu option.
  • Add fit on load (width, height and none) menu option.
  • Color picker functionality even for GIFs!
  • Fix: Minimap toggle bug.
  • Fix: minimap weird placement at startup.
  • Fix: STDIN file being opened as a regular file bug.
  • Fix: remaining files read through the command line.
  • Fix: drag and drop of multiple files.
  • Fix: reading image from STDIN.

• 15 Aug 2024

  • Make minimap render over the graphicsview instead of being a widget on the panel.

    This is the old minimap:

    

    This is the new minimap:

    

  • Add tag features

  • Create and assign tags for images in a session.

  • Fit image on load option.

  • Added more configuration options to lua.

  • Add full path tooltip to each thumbnail.

  • Add sessions to the open session menu as they are created in app.

  • Close and clear the notes editor once the session is closed.

  • Read binary image data from the standard input (piped input).

  • Fix: bug where spawning a new instance of imgv would freeze due to stdin

  • Add pixel analyser as member function of ImageWidget

  • Clicking after pix analysis mode stops the color picking mode with the last pixel color clicked staying intact.

  • Fix: bug in filter tag when switching tag filter

• 14 Aug 2024

  • Minimap
  • Remove caching of unwanted pixmaps. It just slowed down panning.
  • Remove highlight after removing image from thumbnail
  • Resize thumbnailview scrollbar after removing images
  • Added more lua configuration options
  • Fit on load option
  • Hover label for file path

• 13 Aug 2024

  • Created new logo
  • Added logo to the AboutDialog
  • Icons have been removed (looks messy)
  • Minimal color picker has been added
  • Version 1.3
  • Slideshow
  • Highlight current file during slideshow
  • Zoom percentage statusbar widget

• 12 Aug 2024

  • Rebuild DEB package which was f'ed last time.

• 11 Aug 2024

  • Create Flatpak for imgv

• 09 Aug 2024

  • Open sessions from Manage Session Dialog
  • Change build system from qmake to cmake

• 08 Aug 2024

  • Remove & Rename session files
  • Bulf remove session files. Ask confirmation based on number of files selected.
  • Removed QListWidget and replaced with QListView
  • Added search feature for thumbnails
  • Added note functionality
  • Changed session file format to json files for easy reading
  • Added dependency for rapidjson
  • Show note modification status on the statusbar
  • Markdown Highlighting support for the Note Widget
  • Lua support for configuration
  • Display full image properties

  

• 07 Aug 2024

  • EXIF Metadata support (JPEG metadata)
  • Added Image Caching support through QPixmapCache
  • Added icons

• 06 Aug 2024

  • Add support for GIF and WEBP (libwebp) format.
  • --input option directory as argument fix
  • Close sessions
  • Don't ask for save session each time after opening a session

1. Nested SVG files are not loaded by Qt Pixmap. Maybe try to integrate an SVG library and render SVG through data
2. Highlight currently displayed file in the thumbnail panel
3. Color picker for gifs (currently works only on static images)
4. Slideshow show current progress, pause and play instead of starting from the beginning each time
5. Imagewidget drop image crash
6. Sort options for sorting the images in the thumbnail panel like sorting by size, name, date modified etc.
7. Fix the grid size and icon size options
8. Custom thumbnail style
9. Play-pause feature for gif images
10. Use threading to open large set of images.

Thanks

Thanks to Xeno_Sid for letting me use his artwork for the screenshot.

I want to thank the authors of the following projects I have integrated in this software.

1. Sol2
2. QMarkdownTextEdit
3. ArgParse
4. libwebp
5. rapidjson
6. imagemagick