A lightweight, simple to use photo viewer.
Features:
- Portable – Requires no install (But does require .NET 4.0 Client framework – click here to install if the software does not work)
- Recognizes the correct rotation of an image unlike Windows default viewer.
- Many keyboard shortcuts for power users.
- Fullscreen mode for best presentation.
- No thumbnail view mode, uses Windows folder’s thumbnails instead.
To be done:
- Zoom In/Out
- Button, Right Mouse Click or Menu link to Show EXIF data
- Add file associations
- Open .GIF, .PNG and .BMP images
Known Issues:
- Does not handle missing .NET distribution gracefully
- “show hints” setting is not remembered when program closes
- when panning, fix the streaking (non updating) — possibly fixed with double buffering, need more testing
- when going from fullscreen to normal mode and you are at edge of photo, will be blank until you click — possibly fixed, need more testing
To download, read and agree to the software terms of service
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BR Enterprises, LLC (BR Enterprises) is the sole and exclusive owner of the software available on this server and, upon acceptance of these terms and conditions, BR Enterprises grants you free of charge a non-exclusive, nontransferable Licence to Use the software upon the said terms and subject to the said conditions. The proprietary rights and copyright of the software remain with BR Enterprises.
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Loading, installation and use of the software shall be conducted by you solely for the purposes of your own business or personal use.
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You will supervise and control use of the software in accordance with these terms and conditions.
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The software may not be redistributed to a third party in any form in whole or in part without prior written agreement from BR Enterprises.
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BR Enterprises does not undertake to assist in transporting or adapting the software to your machines.
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Although BR Enterprises warrants that the software has been prepared with reasonable skill and care, BR Enterprises does not warrant that the software shall be free from all known viruses or that the software will work correctly in all circumstances.
BR Enterprises will not undertake any maintenance or other support of the software. However, BR Enterprises may from time to time release subsequent versions of the software.
BR Enterprises shall not be liable to you for any loss or damage whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with the software, its use or otherwise, except to the extent to which it is unlawful to exclude such liability under the applicable law. BR Enterprises expressly excludes liability for any indirect, special, incidental or consequential loss or damage that may arise in respect of the software, its use or in respect of equipment or property, and for loss of profit, business, revenue, goodwill or anticipated savings.
These terms and conditions are in lieu of all warranties, conditions, terms, undertakings and obligations implied by statute, common law, custom, trade usage, course of dealing or otherwise, all of which are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.
If you accept these terms and conditions please press Accept to proceed with the download of the software.
Version: BETA 0.0.1.20 Accept Decline
Please leave any feedback or bug reports in the comments below. Thanks!
Wondering why you chose to build on .NET technology for such a simple program? Is that where you are picking up support for loading the image files? IMHO, having to use .NET adds alot of “bloat” to the program, maybe not on disk but certainly in memory usage.
One benefit of an installer (or the functionality could be built into the program directly), would be to allow association with various file extensions (involves updating the Windows Registry). This would allow folks who really like your viewer to associate it as the default viewer so they wouldn’t have to manually launch your program each time then open the image to be viewed.
I think folks would want support for more image types than only JPEG, namely BMP, GIF and PNG at a minimum. I doubt they would want to have to have multiple viewers installed and then have to remember which viewer supported which image format. I think the “big 4” formats would be fine; for other formats most realize they’ll need specialized viewers.
Just my two cents…
Hi Dave,
Great feedback, thanks.
I chose the .NET platform for it’s speed of deployment/ease of programming, yet powerful features and relatively snappy program performance. This is my first “real” language I’m learning (C#) and this is literally my first program… I started to learn Java, but decided to go this route for now. Also, the memory usage while cycling through 8.2MP photos hovers around 35-45MB… hardly anything, really.
I have not addressed the issue of file associations yet, except that on my own machine I associated jpegs to the program manually. That is something I will look into should I decide to distribute this as an installed program… or like you mentioned, perhaps set an option inside the program to associate the files to the “portable” viewer.
I think you’re right with regards to the photo types. While the main purpose of this program is to view jpeg photos, the core of the program already has the ability to load .gif, .bmp and .png, it’s just not implemented. I’ll add the ability to open those in one of the next stages.
Thanks again!
I’ve not looked at C# although I coded for many, many years in C/C++ before switching to Java which I’ve been using for 20+ years now. They are all C derivatives as far as syntax goes so the only difficulties moving from one to the next is their respective libraries which is where all the power lies anyway.
Great first effort. I forgot to say that before giving feedback, sorry. Believe it or not, even though I’ve been writing code to 30+ years now I actually DO remember how awkward those first steps are. I still run into them as I move to use new technologies, luckily they don’t last as long as the first ones…
Thanks for the encouragement. I have some plans for more robust software and in addition I am considering developing with ASP.NET instead of all PHP, so this is a good common ground.
I’ve noticed that many of the modern languages seem very similar, just differences in syntax, libraries, etc. that make the biggest differences (I’m sure there’s more)… but appears that the mentality / flow is generally the same. For instance, it seems all languages have a FOR EACH loop, only difference is syntax. It’s my understanding that Visual C# is very similar to Visual Basic.
The biggest hurdle for me with learning a “real” language instead of my Visual Basic Scripting and simple PHP that I’ve learned to date, is to learn true object oriented programming. I know both of those can be object oriented, but I needed something for creating an actual Windows program. 🙂
….and now I know who to ask when I have questions, Mr. 30 years experience!! lol