PhotoQt v3.2

The latest version v3.2 of PhotoQt is ready with a whole range of exciting new features and improvements. A big thanks to @hadoukez, @Marnes, @stalkerGL, @Sytchenko, @flashwalker, @megahertz1, and @bugbug156 for their feedback, suggestions, and testing.

Here are some of the highlights of this new release:

• The file dialog now acts more like a normal file manager:
  • It is now possible to select files and folders, including multiple selections and range selections.
  • Files and folders can be moved to trash and copied, moved, and pasted using the global clipboard.
  • Thumbnails are by default shown scaled and cropped to fit.
  • Typing a string find the next file whose filename starts with the recently typed string. The current search string is shown in a small floating rectangle at the bottom right.
  • Long filenames are now properly elided in the middle of the filename.
  • The opened folder now follows whichever folder is opened directly with PhotoQt.
• It is now possible to select various dates for advanced sorting of a folder, including dates stored in the meta data and file properties.
• The thumbnail bar experienced several enhancements:
  • There are now several ways that thumbnails can be highlighted: lift up, invert background color, invert label color, line below, and magnify
  • Thumbnails are by default shown scaled and cropped to fit.
  • Tooltips shown when hovering thumbnails can now be disabled
• libmpv support is by default enabled at compile time, and PhotoQt will by default prefer libmpv for better and wider video file support.
• Some Windows specific improvements include:
  • PhotoQt now properly shows up in the task bar and task switcher, avoiding an occasional issue of 'ghost' instances.
  • Animated image files can be properly moved/deleted
• Various other improvements and bug fixes:
  • fix caching of thumbnails inside archives
  • fix execution of external shortcuts
  • fix handling of Escape key
  • and many others...

You can find a more complete list of all the changes, improvements, and bug fixes in this release in the Changelog.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v3.1

PhotoQt v3.1 is a new release that comes with a range of new features and improvements. Thanks to everybody who gave feedback and tested changes, with a particular shoutout to @hadoukez and @novomesk.

Here are some of the highlights of this new release:

• There have been significant improvements to the file dialog:
  • The file count is now visible no matter the contrast with the folder icon.
  • Fixed the sorting of all files and folders in both the main view and breadcrumbs dropdown menu.
  • The breadcrumbs dropdown menu has been reworked with scrollbars and better handling of large folder counts.
  • The overall layout of the file dialog has been tweaked to work better when the window is small, including fixing some smaller visual glitches.
  • Preview images can now be scaled and cropped to fill the entire space behind the file view.
• Thumbnails in the thumbnail bar can now be scaled and cropped to fill the entire square provided for each thumbnail.
• The status bar and/or window buttons can be automatically hidden when not needed. If that is enabled, then they can either be shown on any mouse cursor move or when the mouse cursor is close to the top edge. In addition, the status info can be shown shortly whenever another image is loaded.
• There are various general interface improvements:
  • All Elements that are shown behind any other element can be shown slightly blurry.
  • Context menus are styled much more consistent throughout the application.
  • Font sizes for the various parts of the interface are all specified using point sizes instead of partially with pixel sizes.
  • Mouse wheel scrolling is handled much smoother and more reliable.
  • Windows: The default application font has been fixed to Segoe UI (9pt).
• In addition there have been a few other improvements and additions:
  • Whenever PhotoQt is hidden to system tray it can reset the session including freeing most of the allocated memory.
  • By default, large images are scaled down when loaded in order to be fully visible. It is now possible to tell PhotoQt to always load the full image unscaled (including shortcut to toggle this setting).
  • Exiv2: Add support for BMFF meta format (if available and enabled).
  • External applications are now specified in a better way for both the custom context menu entries and external shortcuts.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v3.0

A new release of PhotoQt with a whole bunch of improvements, some additions, and several bug fixes. Shoutout to @hadoukez at GitLab for all their feedback, testing, and support.

There have been a whole bunch of improvements, here are some of the highlights:

• Shortcuts: A new shortcut has been added to load a random image in the current folder
• File Dialog: The file dialog has received several new improvements, including:
  • It is now possible to directly access the settings manager from the file dialog.
  • Using the forwards/backwards buttons on a mouse now navigate forwards/backwards through the history.
  • When in icon view, up and down arrows move a whole row up/down instead of just to the next/previous entry.
  • The bread crumbs have been reworked with better subfolder listings.
  • All paths now use native separators ('/' on Linux, '' on Windows).
• Histogram: Proper support for images that are not 32bit has been added. The overall speed to load histograms has also been improved.

In addition to the above additions and improvements, there has been a whole range of smaller changes, including:

• improved context/popup/dropdown menus
• improved handling for custom menu entries
• click-and-drag for face tagger

The list above is not exhaustive, there have been many more smaller fixes and improvements. You can find a few more items in the Changelog and all changes since last time in the git history, but best is to try it out yourself.

If you want to keep track of what is going on with PhotoQt, you can now find milestones in the git repository with related issues listed for each milestones. Each issue will list all related commits to track activity and progress.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v2.9

Thanks to again some fantastic feedback, a new release is ready with a whole range of fixes and improvements greatly improving the experience of using PhotoQt.

Some of the highlights of this release include:

• Status Information:
  The status information has been completely reworked. Not only does it support more information to be shown there, the different pieces can be rearranged in any desired order.
• Meta data:
  Loading meta data is no longer based on a white list for supported formats, but instead PhotoQt always attempts to load it and fails gracefully if the file is not support. Also, the meta data element can now be shown again behind the left screen edge (option in settings).
• Icons:
  All icons in the interface have been switched from PNGs to SVGs to support better downscaling without blur. The filetype icons have been reworked to look cleaner and more modern. There are also new backup icons (used, for example, on Windows) thanks to @hadouken.
• Shortcuts:
  Two new shortcuts have been added: One to switch between window and fullscreen mode, and one to toggle the 'fit in window' setting.

In addition to the above additions and improvements, there has been a whole range of fixes:

• Files (and folder) can now be properly sorted again in both the file dialog and when viewing images.
• Certain localizations could not be selected/loaded.
• The pixmap size wasn't calculated properly.
• Improve/fix handling of network paths on Windows.

The list above is not exhaustive, there have been many more smaller fixes and improvements. You can find a few more items in the Changelog and all changes since last time in the git history, but best is to try it out yourself.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v2.8

PhotoQt v2.8 is here with a whole range if improvements, fixes, and updates. This release is mostly focused on improving the user experience and modernizing the interface a bit, while still adding several new features.

With the help of some fantastic feedback, the list of improvements in this release of PhotoQt is quite long. Some of the highlights include (grouped by area):

• Main menu and context menu:
  Both the main menu and the context menu have been completely restyled and restructured to be better organized while looking a little more modern. There is now less duplication in the main menu and the context menu, instead they complement each other to improve usability.

• File dialog:
  Whenever an image is hovered, PhotoQt shows a large preview image in the back. By default, the preview image is simply the thumbnail image, scaled up (very fast). It is now possible to switch to a higher resolution preview image (slightly slower). Additionally, the preview image can be blurred and its colors can be muted.
  In addition to the changes to the preview image, the tooltip that pops up when a file is hovered has been reworked for better styling and better handling of images with odd ratios and very long filenames. If the tooltip is not wanted, it can be disabled altogether.

• File formats:
  The Adobe Illustrator format is now supported (through ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick)

• Shortcuts:
  In addition to supporting key combinations and simple mouse actions for shortcuts, this release adds the support of double clicks.

• Navigation:
  Buttons to navigate through the folder and show the main menu are shown next to the window buttons in the top right (can be disabled). The floating navigation buttons are also still available, but they moved to the bottom middle of the main interface and blend in much better than before. They can be moved freely using simple click-and-drag.
  During zoom, PhotoQt by default keeps the mouse position fixed. In addition, it is possible to set PhotoQt to always zoom to/from the center of the image. Also, though it is still possible to zoom an image as much or as little as desired, by default PhotoQt now stops before the image gets too much zoomed out or in.

• Meta data:
  So far, the meta data has always been hiding behind the right window edge. Now, it has been turned into a floating element that can be shown through shortcut or context menu. It can be moved anywhere on the screen using a simple click-and-drag, and it can be hidden through a button that can be found at the top right of the element.

• Slideshow:
  Controlling the slideshow is no longer done through a large bar at the top, but instead the controls are shown as floating buttons in the middle near the bottom of the main image. They are barely visible, unless the slideshow is paused or the mouse is hovering the buttons. They can also be moved to any other placed in the main interface through simple click-and-drag.

• Interface:
  Some of the elements in PhotoQt need a certain minimum screen space in order to display their content properly. Thus, if the window of PhotoQt is too small, these elements can be automatically popped out into their own window.

• Windows:
  There have been different improvements specifically for the Windows platform. For example, PhotoQt now supports moving files into the Trash on Windows (as long as the used Qt version is at least 5.15). It is now also possible to set an image as wallpaper (as long as the image format is supported natively by Windows). In addition, PhotoQt also now explicitly uses OpenGLES on Windows which has reportedly led to better performance.

These are some of the major changes, there have been many more smaller improvements to improve usability and make PhotoQt look a little more modern. You can find a few more items in the Changelog, but best is to try it out yourself.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v2.7

Another new release is ready, once again with many new and exciting features and plenty of smaller improvements across the whole application.

Some of the highlights of this release include:

• Support for two new image libraries: libvips and libmpv. libvips is an attractive option whenever some of the more heavy-weight libraries, like ImageMagick, are unavailable. It doesn't support as many image formats but is much more lightweight. libmpv offers an alternative way to include video files in PhotoQt. It is slightly slower in loading video files compared to the native Qt support, however, it has the potential to support a much wider range of video
• Sort images by luminosity: PhotoQt v2.6 introduced the first advanced sorting criteria for images in a folder. In v2.7, a new sorting criteria is added to the list: luminosity.
• The main menu is now divided into collapsible categories. PhotoQt will also store the state of each collapsible category across sessions.
• If you want to find out what features are supported by your installation of PhotoQt, you can now find an overview of the configuration either by clicking on the version number in the 'About' window, or through the --show-info command line flag.

These are just some of the bigger highlights, as usual there are many more smaller changes and improvements. You can find a few more in the Changelog, but best is to try it out yourself.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt 2.6 - new image formats, new features, better performance

PhotoQt v2.6 is now ready with support for new image formats, new features, and better performance. In addition, several bugs discovered since last release have been fixed. Thank you to everybody who provided feedback.

Some of the highlights of this release include:

• Support for new image formats: PhotoQt relies on various libraries in order to load and display a wide variety of formats. Recent changes to those libraries result in the following new formats to be supported:
  • Animated Windows cursors (ani)
  • Multi-face font package (dfont)
  • Group 4 Fax (g4)
  • High-Efficiency Image File (heic/heif)
  • OpenType Font (otf)
  • Postscript Type 1 font (pfa/pfb)
  • JPEG 2000 uncompressed format (pgx)
  • Quite OK image format (qoi)
  • DEC SIXEL Graphics Format (sixel)
• New transitions: There are a few new transitions for switching between images. In addition to the already existing fade-over and move left/right and up-down, images can now explode, implode, and rotate into each other. There is also a random mode that chooses a new transition at random each time around.
• Advanced Sorting: The files loaded in the main view can be sorted in some new ways. You can choose to sort them by image resolution, the dominant image color, and the average image
• New filter options: There a new ways to filter the currently loaded folder to only show images matching certain criterias. In addition to file names/extensions, images can be filtered based on their file size and image resolution.
• Print support: It is now possible to print images directly from inside PhotoQt. There are various image settings available (roughly based on GwenView's print options).

These are just some of the highlights, as usual there are many more smaller changes and improvements. You can find a few more in the Changelog, but best is to try it out yourself.

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:

• Email: You can always send me an email.
• IRC: I often hang out in the IRC channel #photoqt over at Libera.Chat.
• GitLab: Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v2.5 - 10 years of PhotoQt

It has been more than 10 years since the very first release of PhotoQt. What better way to celebrate this anniversary (albeit a little late) with a new release packed with many exciting new features and improvements.

Some of the highlights of this release include:

• Chromecast support: Using the Python library pychromecast, PhotoQt can stream any image directly to your Chromecast device. Note that this only mirrors the actual image, any zooming/rotation/etc. will not update the streamed image.
• Thread handling: PhotoQt makes extensive use of threads to improve loading thumbnail images. This has caused some issues before, for example, it could cause PhotoQt to crash when exited too quickly. This new release ships a much better way to handle the threads that should fix all previous issues.
• Default shortcut for Escape: The default shortcut for the Escape key up until now was to close any sub-window, or (if the main image is shown) to close PhotoQt. From now, when the main image is visible then the default shortcut for Escape is to go back to the file dialog to keep browsing images. Note that this does only apply to fresh installs, no existing shortcuts will be changed.
• Command line options: PhotoQt has gained a new-and-improved handling of command line options, including some new command line options to check and/or reset the configuration, among other things.
• Windows installer signature: Since late December, I now have the ability to cryptographically sign the Windows installer. Note, that this does not mean that the Microsoft SmartScreen wont appear anymore, though over time this could very well happen. In the meantime, you can verify the authenticity of the installer by the author name in the SmartScreen prompt.

As usual, these are just some of the highlights, there have been plenty of more changes and bug fixes. You can find a few more in the Changelog.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.
3. Support me with a donation to show your appreciation of all the time I spend developing/maintaining PhotoQt.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v2.4

After a short wedding-related break in developping PhotoQt over the summer, a new release of PhotoQt is ready, coming with several additions and improvements, some addressing years-old issues on GitLab.

Here are some of the highlights of this release:

• Zoom/Pinch to position: Up until now, PhotoQt would only zoom to the image center instead of where the mouse cursor was pointed. Starting now, PhotoQt zooms to/from the cursor position. The same applies to pinching on touchscreens.
• Exclude directories from caching/preloading: There are some cloud providers that only download files when acessed. Caching/preloading images would trigger this for all the files. Now there is an option to exclude directories (including its subdirectories) from any caching/preloading.
• Clicking on the empty area around the image previously could only close PhotoQt (if enabled). Now there is another option to also navigate to previous/next image depending on if the click happened in the empty area in the left or right half of the screen.
• New filetype icons: PhotoQt now has its own set of filetype icons that are shown before thumbnails are loaded. They allow to quickly and easily see what filetype an image is.

There have been several more smaller improvements, some more visible than others (e.g., new filetype icons). Since the last release there have also been some bug reports that were addressed, including:

• most metadata (Exif/XMP) was never refreshed when a new image was loaded
• placeholders in external shortcuts were only replaced when they were surrounded by spaces
• changes to the current image/folder were not reacted to
• wheel directions were reversed

See the Changelog for a more complete list of all the changes.

Besides the fixes/additions that affect all platforms, there have been many fixes specifically targetting Windows. The Windows version of PhotoQt is nearing feature parity to the Linux version, only a few (mostly minor) things are not yet supported.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can do so:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.
3. Support me with a donation to show your appreciation of all the time I spend developing/maintaining PhotoQt.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas

PhotoQt v2.3

It has only been a week, but quite a lot happened with PhotoQt in just this one week. The additions, improvements, and bug fixes are more than enough to warrant a full new version.

There have been a few new additions to PhotoQt, some of which inspired by feedback and comments I have received (thanks to everyone who did so):

• Context menu: In addition to the main menu there is now also a context menu that can be opened up at the mouse position. When upgrading, PhotoQt checks whether the right mouse button is in use for a shortcut, and if not it will be assigned to the context menu. Of course, this can be changed to any desired shortcut.
• New shortcuts manager: The manager for shortcuts has been completely rewritten. Before it could be a little difficult to see which shortcuts are set for any one action. The new shortcut manager takes a slightly different approach. It shows one tile for each action with all the shortcuts set right next to it. This makes it so much easier to keep an overview of what is set to what and how to call which action.
• New shortcuts: Together with a new shortcuts manager a range of new internal functions were added. There are now shortcuts to
  • Enable/disable viewer mode
  • Show/hide the main menu, metadata, and thumbnails
  • Show/hide the quick navigation buttons
  • Show/hide any face tags
  • Show the context menu
• Restore defaults: There is now again a way to restore the default configuration from inside PhotoQt. You can find it through the 'advanced' button in the settings manager. It is possible to restore the default of the settings, the image formats, and/or the shortcuts.
  Please note that the default shortcuts have changed slightly. None of your existing shortcuts will be touched, unless you reset them to the default shortcuts. However, the most often used shortcuts have remained unchanged.
• New image format: If the Qt plugin for JPEG XL is installed, they can now also be opened through PhotoQt.

In addition to the new features outlined above, there have also been quite a few improvements and bug fixes:

• The mouse gestures use arrows instead of North/South/East/West to indicate direction
• Loading rar archives with non-Latin filenames failed when unrar was used
• The setting PixmapCache used the wrong datatype (bool instead of int). When upgrading, this value will be reset to the default of 512MB (unless cache has been disabled altogether)
• Various other smaller bug fixes and improvements. See the Changelog for a few more changes.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can do so:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.
3. Support me with a small donation to show your appreciation of all the time I spend developing/maintaining PhotoQt.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas