uiv Image Viewer - Manual

v.2008-05-10-1

General

UIV is a free image viewing program specialized for browsing large sets of images in the most common formats (PNG,JPEG,BMP,GIF).

Now there are of course already a bazillion image viewers out there, so you might wonder why the author even bothered. The following keypoints are features of UIV which the author though were not that reasily available in existing programs, or if they were only in applications having other unacceptable characteristics.

• Free (that's nothing special in itself, but some of the other features might only be available in commercial alternatives).
• Unicode file names and paths (main reason i wrote it, could not find a single free viewer that supports unicode paths).
• Frugal screen estate consumption (do you like those apps where the actual workspace is like half of the space occupied by the app? with UIV it's 100%).
• Designed for the lazy with a memory (mostly keyboard commands, no toolbars, few dialogs).
• Focuses on what is / should be on screen and the (IMO) most useful functions in this context.
• Efficient browsing navigation (+/- "stolen" from IrfanView).
• Extensive and quick window position and size selection commands for painless arrangment of multiple images on the screen.
• Setting managed in a way actually compliant with NT5, while keeping the application "install and setup free".
• Starting with the 2008-05-10 version, the pixel transform for display is multi-threaded*.

Table of Contents

• Command Reference
  • Keyboard Commands
  • Mouse Actions
  • Mouse Menu (Settings)
• How-To-Style Topics
  • Installation-Free
  • Navigation, Browsing, Lists and Linklists
  • Image Transforms
  • Position and Size Alignment
  • Copy-Pasta and similar
  • Tags
• Terms of Use, Legal, etc

Install-Free

UIV consists of a single file, the executable. Therefore there are no settings files which would either have to be buried into the "Documents and Settings"-hell or made writable by every windows user account (HELLO? I actually use applications, released no earlier than 2007 where the authors obviuosly still think the user should run her daily business logged in as administrator.). When you put this together, the only oprtion to store settings in a compliant way is to use the registry. UIV can do this, if you want to keep settings. But it does not do it by default, in order not to immediately pollute any system where it is launched on. Instread, in the mouse menu you have a togglable item "Store to Registry". When this is checked and no entry exists in the registy, the full settings are written to registry (CURRENT USER!, therefore each user has its own settings and no security breaches are necessary). Then as long as this is checked, all setting changes will be reflected into the registy. When you uncheck it, the registry settings remain, but are read-only. All registry entires can be removed with "Remove from Registry", which deletes all of UIVs registry keys and unchecks "Store to Registry".

Basically, if you don't like UIV, it is removed with at most a single mouse menu command (no action at all if you ddin't turn on registry before). If you like UIV you can bring it to any system and not pollute it at all or if you want the setiing there too they are still later removed with a single mouse menu command. (Any system of course means a NT5 one (Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server)).

Navigation

UIV with its focus on what should be displayed naturally also provides efficient browsing. Wehenever an image is opened, its parent directory is scanned for supported image files and you can then navigate in this list using <SPACEBAR> (next), <BACKSPACE> (previous), <CTRL+HOME> (first in directory) and <CTRL+END> (last in directory). If you hit the front/end with space and backspace, they will not wrap around, but with shift+space/backspace, the wraparound occurs. The index in the directory is seen in the infobar (show/hide with "i").

While UIV does not have classic image editor functions, it features file deletion from within the application, and without confirmation. <DELETE> sends the currently shown image to the recycle bin without silly confirmation. <SHIFT+DELETE> even deletes the file without confirmation and without the option to resotre it from recycle bin (this is NOT a secure delete, just the normal without recycle bin, like <SHIFT+DELETE> in Windows Explorer but without confirmation).

UIV supports a list file format (*.uiv-list). Such a list can be loaded in parallel to the directory navigation facilities and the files referenced in such a list do not all need to be in the same directory. If a list file is navigated to, the directory browing facilities automatically update to that respective directory. While a list is loaded, whenever a file maches one in the list, this is shown in the info bar and the current list index changes to that one. Wehn a list is loaded, the directory naviation is still available such that starting from a list file, one can navigate away from it in that directory by using space and backspace and the list index is retained unless another file in the list is "accidentially" browsed to. When navigating off a list file, the info bar refelcts this by keeping the list index, but appending a "+/-offeset". For the full format of the nbavigation info string see the chapter about the info bar.

Keyboard Commands

CTRL	SHIFT	ALT	key
			1..9,0	Directly set rating of the image (As this is list property, this only works when a list is loaded and the current file is part of it)
ctrl			1..9,0	Size and position dial, see under Numpad 1..9,0 for explanation. The ctrl included when using the main pad digits is ignored by the size and position dial.
	shift		1..9,0	Add the current image to the xth list (0 means the 10th) in the currently active link node. Only works if a link node is active, links to that many lists and the target list is not protected. If there is also a list loaded and the current image is part of it, the images tags will be copied as well.
	shift	alt	1..9,0	Add the current image to the xth list and removes it from the current list.
			B	Open parent folder with Windows Explorer and select current image ("Browse")
ctrl			C	Copy selected (entire current viewport if nothing selected)
			D	Open a new uiv instance with the same image open ("Duplicate")
			F	Fit to screen (current viewport is scaled to the maximum zoom where still everything fits onto the screen)
			G	Increase gamma correction
	shift		G	Decrease gamma correction
		alt	G	Reset gamma correction
			H	Flip horizontally (on the current viewport)
			I	Toggle bottom bar
ctrl			I	Show dialog with further image and file information
			L	rotate left, around viewport center, small step
		alt	L	rotate left, around viewport center, large step (small step x alt multiplier)
	shift		L	rotate left, around viewport center, 90
			M	Minimise
ctrl			N	Erases image data (fills universe with background color)
ctrl	shift		N	Creates a new UIV list
ctrl			O	Opens an image (browse for one)
ctrl	shift		O	Opens an UIV list (browse for one)
			P	If the current image is also the current list image (no offset), it is removed from the list, else it is inserted into the list after the current list position.
ctrl			P	Print the selection (viewport if no selection). This opens the dialog with further settings.
			R	rotate right, around viewport center, small step
		alt	R	rotate right, around viewport center, large step (small step x alt multiplier)
	shift		R	rotate right, around viewport center, 90
ctrl			S	Saves the selection (if nothing is selected, the viewport) as image file (PNG,JPEG,BMP).
ctrl	shift		S	Saves the current UIV list (browse for location)
			T	Show tag window for current image (if a list is loaded and the image is part of that list)
	shift		T	Show tag window for current list (a list needs to be loaded and be linked to from the currently active link node)
			V	Flip vertically (on the current viewport)
ctrl			V	Simple paste. All image data is replaced with the one from clipboard (transform is reset and window scaled to fit)
ctrl	shift		V	Enter paste mode. Resets the transform and allows to define the paste location by selection (all transforms extept translate are disabled during this mode). Apply paste with CTRL+V or exit mode with with ESCAPE.
ctrl			Y	Set the viewport to the selection (zoom-translate)
ctrl	shift		Y	Zoom into selection (the window may grow in one direction)
ctrl	shift	alt	Y	Zoom into selection (the window may shrink in one direction)
			SPACEBAR	Switch to next image file in directory.
	shift		SPACEBAR	When this is the last image file in the directory, switches to the first one.
			BACKSPACE	Switch to previous image file in directory.
	shift		BACKSPACE	When this is the first image file in the directory, switches to the last one in the directory.
			ENTER	Resize window to entire screen (transform is not modified, this means the top left part is the same as before). When already fullscreen, this restores the former window size showing the top left part.
	shift		ENTER	Resize window to entire screen (transform is modified such that the effect is that of no movement on the screen, just enlarging the viewport in all directions). When already fullscreen, this restores the former window size by shrinking the viewport borders in all directions.
			DELETE	Sends this file to the recycle bin (without confirmation). The viewport stays the same, but "conceptually" it moved a file back, so F5 will load the previous and space will load the next. The dirlist is updated.
	shift		DELETE	Deletes this file (not to the recycle bin and without confirmation). The viewport stays the same, but "conceptually" it moved a file back, so F5 will load the previous and space will load the next. The dirlist is updated.
			Home	Go to first in UIV list
ctrl			Home	Go to first image in the currently browsed directory
			End	Go to last in UIV list
ctrl			End	Go to last image in the currently browsed directory
			Page Up	Go to previous in UIV list
	shift		Page Up	Move this UIV list item up (=earlier) in the list
			Page Down	Go to next in list
	shift		Page Down	Move this UIV list item down (=later) in the list
			Up Arrow	Walk up on the image (the image scrolls down)
		alt	Up Arrow	Walk up on the image, large step
	shift		Up Arrow	Walk up on the image, with "up" interpreted as on the untransformed image.
	shift	alt	Up Arrow	Walk up on the image, with "up" interpreted as on the untransformed image, large step.
ctrl			Up Arrow	Move the window up on the screen.
ctrl	shift		Up Arrow	Decrease the window height (bottom edge moves up).
			Down Arrow	Walk down on the image (the image scrolls up)
		alt	Down Arrow	Walk down on the image, large step
	shift		Down Arrow	Walk down on the image, with "down" interpreted as on the untransformed image.
	shift	alt	Down Arrow	Walk down on the image, with "down" interpreted as on the untransformed image, large step.
ctrl			Down Arrow	Move the window down on the screen.
ctrl	shift		Down Arrow	Increase the window height (bottom edge moves down).
			Left Arrow	Walk left on the image (the image scrolls to the right)
		alt	Left Arrow	Walk left on the image, large step
	shift		Left Arrow	Walk left on the image, with "left" interpreted as on the untransformed image.
	shift	alt	Left Arrow	Walk left on the image, with "left" interpreted as on the untransformed image, large step.
ctrl			Left Arrow	Move the window to the left on the screen.
ctrl	shift		Left Arrow	Decrease the window width (right edge moves to the left).
			Right Arrow	Walk right on the image (the image scrolls to the left)
		alt	Right Arrow	Walk right on the image, large step
	shift		Right Arrow	Walk right on the image, with "right" interpreted as on the untransformed image.
	shift	alt	Right Arrow	Walk right on the image, with "right" interpreted as on the untransformed image, large step.
ctrl			Right Arrow	Move the window to the right on the screen.
ctrl	shift		Right Arrow	Increase the window width (right edge moves further to the right).
			Numpad 1-9	Type a position code. Imagine the square formed by the 9 keys as the screen region. By pressing a sequence of keys, you select which parts of the screen should be covered by the window. When done, press the numpad zero (possibly with modifiers). The code is retained until you press another of 1-9 after pressing 0. Note that two keys in one dimension stand for half the screen in that direction (not two thirds). Alternatively CTRL+1..9, 0 may be used in place of the numpad keys since numpad may be hardly accessible on a laptop keyboard - because for this CTRL is already needed, the "without zooming" operation is not available this way.
			Numpad 0	End and apply position code. The image is zoomed appropriately, thus the visible region stays the same. The window fits completely within the selected screen region and keeps its aspect ratio ("touch from inside").
		alt	Numpad 0	End and apply position code. The image is zoomed appropriately, thus the visible region stays the same. The window is resized such that the smaller dimension covers as much of the screen as specified while keeping the aspect ratio ("touch from outside").
	shift		Numpad 0	End and apply position code. The image is zoomed such that the visible region is at least the same as before. The window fits exactly to the selected screen region thus its aspect ratio may change (leading to more visible in one dimension since the zoom is always the same in all directions).Here, "Alt" is ignored (meaningless) when shift it pressed.
ctrl			Numpad 0	End and apply position code. The image zoom is not changed, thus the visible region of the image changes. The window fits completely within the selected screen region and keeps its aspect ratio ("touch from inside").
ctrl		alt	Numpad 0	End and apply position code. The image zoom is not changed, thus the visible region of the image changes. The window is resized such that the smaller dimension covers as much of the screen as specified while keeping the aspect ratio ("touch from outside").
ctrl	shift		Numpad 0	End and apply position code. The image zoom is not changed, thus the visible region of the image changes. The window fits exactly to the selected screen region thus its aspect ratio may change.Here, "Alt" is ignored (meaningless) when shift it pressed.
			Numpad +	Increase zoom ("zoom in") Window adjusts to keep the viewport the same part of the image, if possible. F10 does the same as Numpad +, because numpad may be hardly accessible on a laptop keyboard.
		alt	Numpad +	Increase zoom ("zoom in") using alternative step size . Window adjusts to keep the viewport the same part of the image, if possible.
ctrl			Numpad +	Increase zoom. The viewport center is the fixed point and the window size doesn't change.
ctrl		alt	Numpad +	Increase zoom using alternative zoom step size. The viewport center is the fixed point and the window size doesn't change.
			Numpad -	Decrease zoom ("zoom out") Window adjusts to keep the viewport the same part of the image, if possible. F9 does the same Numpad - because numpad may be hardly accessible on a laptop keyboard.
		alt	Numpad -	Decrease zoom ("zoom out") using alternative zoom step size. Window adjusts to keep the viewport the same part of the image, if possible.
ctrl			Numpad -	Decrease zoom. The viewport center is the fixed point and the window size doesn't change.
ctrl		alt	Numpad -	Decrease zoom using alternative zoom step size. The viewport center is the fixed point and the window size doesn't change.
			ESCAPE	Close application (except when inside some mode, then the mode is ecapsed)
			F1	Open this help file in the application associated with HTML.
			F2	Rename currently open image file (list and directory browser are updated, but not any other lists linking to it)
			F3	Show the current list to navigate to an arbitraty entry in it
	shift		F3	Builds a new list by filtering the images linked to by the current link node (and its subnodes) or if no link node is loaded, from the current list. A Dialog allows to define tag filters and the result can either be saved to disk, loaded as new list or appened to the current list.
			F4	Show the link browser. If no root node is set at that time, a file dialog pops up to select/create a root file. Once a root is set, F4 will directly jump to the currently active link node. Editing, including link tagging and switching root is all done in this browser.
			F5	Reload this image file from disk (changes the viewport the same way as your "file open" are currently set to do)
	shift		F5	Refresh the directory list (useful if files were added, renamed or removed by another application)
		alt	F5	Reblit the viewport (in case it outdated)
			F6	Go to next sibling folder of current folder. The first image in the new folder is loaded.
	shift		F6	Go to previous sibling folder of current folder. The first image in the new folder is loaded.
ctrl			F6	Go to first child folder of current folder. The first image in the new folder is loaded.
ctrl	shift		F6	Go to parent folder of current folder. The first image in the new folder is loaded. Tip: CTRL+F6 immediately followed by CTRL+SHIFT+F6 will take you to the first sibling of the current folder. Add SHIFT+F6 after that and it is the last sibling (since F6 and SHIFT+F6 wrap around ends).
			F9	Decrease zoom (same as Numpad -, see there for explanation and modifiers).
			F10	Increase zoom (same as Numpad +, see there for explanation and modifiers).
Mouse Action
CTRL	SHIFT	ALT	action
			right click	Bring up mouse menu, which provides settings
			drag	When not started close to any window edge, drag the window around on the screen
			drag	When started close to top edge, drag the window vertically (horizontal locked)
			drag	When started close to left edge, drag the window horizontally (vertical locked)
			drag	When started close to right edge, resize window horizontally (drag right edge only)
			drag	When started close to bottom edge, resize window vertically (drag bottom edge only)
ctrl			drag	Draw selection (for crop, copy)
ctrl			click	Select nothing
ctrl			click	When in extended paste mode, a mouse down outside the current selection will place the selections top left corder at that position. Thus a CTRL+click results in placing the selection, dragging will then just further move the selection with the cursor.
ctrl			drag	Close to selection border, drag this selection edge
ctrl			drag	Well inside the selection, drag selection around
			drop file/dir	The action depends on what is dropped: directory: If the dropped set contains a directory, the first image in that directory is loaded. All other in the set are ignored. a single image file: The image is loaded. If a uiv-list is already open, it is also inserted into the list after the current position. else (The set is any other mixture of image and uiv-list files): 1.If no uiv-list is loaded, a new one is created. 2. All uiv-lists are inserted into the uiv-list after the current position. 3. All images are inserted into the uiv-list after the current position. The current list position is not changed and the loaded image is not changed.

Mouse menu

Resampling Method	Select the method used to resample the image data.
	Nearest Neighbour
	This is the fastest method, at the expense of rather poor quality. Apart from being fast it can also useful because at large zoom levels the individual pixels are clearly seen as squares which can be a desired effect.
	Bilinear
	This method is not much slower than nearest neighbour (ca half as fast) but usually looks condiderably better, especially at moderate zoom levels. At really large zoom levels it can look quite awkward. It uses a 2x2 kernel.
	Bicubic
	This method is yet a bit slower than bilinear (ca two thirds as fast). It removes the awkward look of the bilinear method at large zoom levels. Otherwise it looks quite similar to bilinear. It is rather soft and does not produce ringing but tends to swallow detail at small zoom levels. It uses a 4x4 kernel (radius = 2, a=-0.5).
	Lanczos 3
	This method is yet a bit slower than bicubic (ca 10-25% slower). It may retain more detail but when zooming in, it produces slight ringing on sharp edges (might be a bug). It uses a 6x6 kernel (sinc windowed to radius = 3).
	Lanczos 8
	This method is very slow (5-10 times slower than lanczos 3). It produces strong ringing on sharp edges. It applies a 16x16 kernel, but the main reason it is so terribly slow is that the other kernel function are fully unrolled and "probability ordered" branching for border cases. This is hardly possible for a 256 cell kernel (bicubic is already 4x1100 lines with only 16 cells..). Thus Lanczos 8, unlike the other uses loops to process cells of the kernel. The only use i can think of is when you need mx quality, eg for storing as file or printing (warning printing=very large bitmap=very long processing time)
	<not yet defined>
	There will be one more method, one of the various high quality methods floating around, but it is not yet decided which. Possible candidates are sinc, spline36 and lanzcos. An implementation of an extremely high quality method like EEDI is not planned as this category is so unbelievably slow that they are useless for "just in time" application in an image viewer.
Scaling (Zoom)
	Step
	Select the basic zoom factor applied on each zoom operation. For example with step 1.25, the actual zoom factor will be 1.25, then 1.25^2 (~1.56), then 1.25^3 (~1.95), then 1.25^4 (~2.44)
	Alt Step
	Select the alternative zoom factor applied on each zoom operation when ALT is pressed when zooming.
Rotation
	Step
	Select the basic rotation angle applied on each rotate left (L) or right (R).
	Alt Step
	Select how much larger the rotation angle is when using ALT (ALT+L, ALT+R). For example with rotation step 3° and rotation alt step x1.5, ALT+L/R will rotate by 4.5° (1.5 times 3°).
Translation
	Step
	Alt Step
	Source Step
	Source Alt Step
Border
	Draw Border
	Select whether or not to draw a one pixel wide border along the edge of the application window, for example when it would otherwise be difficult to see where the window is/ends.
	Select Color
	Select the border color.
Background Color
	Select the color used outside the image data and that is also used for filling the background in extended paste mode.
Tolerances
	Window Dragging
	Select how many pixel away from an application edge the cursor can be to still start a window resize or orthononal move operation (further inside, a move operation is started).
	Selection Dragging
	Select how many pixel away from a selection edge the cursor can be to still start to drag only this edge. If further inside, a selection move operation will be started, if further outside a new selection will start to be drawn.
Registry
	uiv can store settings in the registry if you wish them to be persistent. But it does not do this by default, thus you can run it on someone else's computer without polluting their computer. If registry keys are written, they all go into "HKCU/Software/unmei/uiv/1". The use of HKCU means, settings are per user and no administrator rights are required (this is important, i hate how some people think it is normal to run as admin).
	Store to Registry
	When checked, settings are stored to registry. Else the registry is only read (if there are settings stored there), but no settings are written to it.
	Remove from Registry
	Delete all registry entries of this application. On the next application start, it will start with "factory defaults". Note that the key "/software/unmei/uiv/1" and all its children are deleted, but not any of its parents, even if these were created anew. This is to ensure not to accidentially delete the settings of a possible future other version or other application sharing the same parent. (Maybe i'll later encance it to delete them too if they are now empty)
Tags
	Persistence
	When checked, collected Tags are stored to disk for future use. If such tag files are present in the same folder as uiv.exe, they are read in regardless of whether this menu item is checked, the menu item only controls writing to these files.

Application Title Editor

The application title format editor is opened by pressing 'C' without modifiers. It specifies the formatting used for the application title which shows up in the window task bar and application switching (ALT+TAB). The following placeholders will be replaced with the respective values:

• %f : Image file name, including extension
• %F : Image file name, excluding extension
• %i : Index in the folder, format <index> / <count>
• %I : Index in the list, format <index> / <count> <±offset>
• %r : Rating (if not zero), format R: <rating>
• %c : Caption from list item tags
• %C : Caption from list item tags - if there is none, the image file name without extension is inserted
• %l : File name of the current list. If no list is loaded or the current image is not part of it, the current folder name is inserted.
• %L : File name of the current list and index into it (like %I). If no list is loaded or the current image is not part of it, the current folder name and index into it are inserted (like %i).
• %t : All tags (only the "tag tags", not key=value, rating, caption, etc).

Multithreading

The most CPU demanding part of the application -the pixel transform from source to display space- can now make use of multi-core and multi-processor systems (i'm not sure about this, but i suspect not too many free image viewers have MT). The number of threads is not hardcoded but user selectable in the range 1..64. WARNING setting way more threads than you have cores at disposal will make it considerably slower. I decided to allow up to 64 in case someone runs it on a "real system" ;) and wants to process huge pictures.

Terms of Use

(c) 2008 Copyright Fabian Seiler

This program may be used free of charge. The author denies any responsibility. You use this program at your own risk. The source code of the main program is available for inspection to anyone, but modification of the source code requires permission from the author.

This program uses the following components by third parties which fall under the copyright and terms of use of their respective authors:

• Tnt Delphi Unicode Controls, version 2.0.18 (c) 2002, 2003 Troy Wolbrink (troy.wolbrink@ccci.org)(http://home.ccci.org/wolbrink/tnt/delphi_unicode_controls.htm). Please note that the current versions of this package is no longer available free of charge. You must use this version or earlier ones unless you accept to license a newer version and pay for it accordingly. This component is used for unicode capable visual controls, the TFileStream descendant capable of opening a stream from a unicode file name, adaptions of some utility functions to unicode and wrappers for the "W" version of Windows API calls where they lack in Delphi 7 VCL.
• TGifImage d7g (c) 1997-99 Anders Melander (anders@melander.dk) . Further authors: Filip Larsen, Reinier Sterkenburg. Current maintainer and releaser of this version (2007.01.18) is Finn Tolderlund (finn@tolderlund.eu)(http://www.tolderlund.eu/delphi/).
• Portable Network Graphics Delphi 1.564 (31 July 2006) (c) Gustavo Huffenbacher Daud (gustavo.daud@terra.com.br)(http://pngdelphi.sourceforge.net).
• SuperFastHash (c) Paul Hsieh (http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/qed/hash.html). This website contains the C source code of SuperFashHash, UIV uses a literal port to delphi, done by me (FSE), which is unofficial. SuperFastHash (sfh.pas) is used to match paths in the current directory list against paths in the loaded UIV list.