How to setup Image Preview on PowerShell on Windows Terminal

[Redbeard93]

No description provided.

[Ashijo]

On linux we use external packages like ueberzug that use imagemagick to display the image in the terminal. Imagemagick work on powershell but I don't think an equivalent of ueberzug actually exist for PS.
If someone knows one I'm interested too.

[inkfin]

There have been some discussions about displaying images in windows terminal link, at current stage it seems like the sixel support is pretty well, and you can use chafa to preview image by setting previewer to chafa.

Here's an example

[deltoss]

Thanks. I've installed & set the previewer to chafa. Works fine for images. But I wanted the preview to also still work with text files, and show the file metadata too.

I ended up creating the below scripts (based on this). Here's the Gist.

• CustomPreviewer.cmd --> lf should set the previewer to this file. Runs CustomPreviewer.ps1.
• CustomPreviewer.ps1 --> Contains the actual previewing code, which uses chafa for images. Handles text files & displays file metadata too.

How I did My Setup

1. Install chafa:

   winget install hpjansson.Chafa --scope machine

2. Get the above script files and put them anywhere in your system.

3. Open your lfrc file and add the below line:

   # Custom file previewer
   set previewer "<PathToScriptsFolder>\\CustomPreviewer.cmd"

   E.g:

   set previewer "C:\\ProgramData\\lf\\CustomPreviewer.cmd"

4. Restart your terminal(s).

Here's the output:

[ccammack]

As an alternative, one can also use the browser to preview files.