Release Pandora Image Viewer


One question:  Can PIV be programmed to have an option so that when I leave my Pandora unused for a set period of time, PIV will automatically fires up and go into screensaver mode with my favorite picture album?  When I touch any key, PIV will close down and I can resume working (I mean playing) on my Pandora?  It will consume power but that's my choice :)
This would not really be a feature of PIV, it's a matter of getting a screensaver daemon that can be configured to call an arbitrary program. Then you just need to make a shell script that calls PIV with some command-line arguments to make it go into slideshow mode on your favorite directory, and that's pretty much it. The only thing I would need to add to PIV is a command-line option to make it exit on any input.
 
If you feel like to, when you take a your next bath, can you make that shell script as I have no idea how to?    If you don't feel like it, then I still say thank you. :)
 
What you probably want is a port of xscreensaver, or any other screensaver that allows you to use arbitrary programs as screensaver. I'm not going to include that in PIV. I will add a way to configure PIV to behave like a screensaver though: slideshow enabled by default, quit on keypress.

The 0.4 version will be ready soon. It's going to be a relatively major improvement for the task of managing digital camera pictures.
 
If you feel like to, when you take a your next bath, can you make that shell script as I have no idea how to?    If you don't feel like it, then I still say thank you. :)
You know instead of demanding stuff the whole time, you could also start learning step by step and find out how to do these kind of things? Your Pandora is not a black box, learn how to program with it. All tools are included to start making scripts and info is abundant online.
 
New update on the repo!

I think most of the above comments / feature requests are implemented.

Zero3K wanted different sort options - this is possible, although not in a user-friendly way. You have to modify appdata/piv/piv.conf to change the default sort order (name, size, time, extension, reversed or not), and you can override the default by putting a different ".piv.conf" in the image directory.

Neelix and ekianjo wanted crop to new files / multicrop; it is there. Also you can now use the stylus instead of the nubs to select / move / resize, which is much easier and faster.

PowerGod noticed the disappearing help screen overlay - there is now a lowres mini-help screen so you always see something.

Ekianjo wanted adjustable nub speeds - this is also configurable from appdata/piv/piv.conf now.

Ekianjo wanted better integration with the file manager (if you open one image in PIV, you can still see the rest of the directory) - done.

Ingoreis wanted to not have to restart PIV each time you want to view another directory - done.

Ekianjo noticed that RAW formats (at least CR2) did not work. Now they do. PIV now includes Exiv2 to extract previews from the RAW, which is fast and the most practical way to view them, so in the viewer, this is used now behind the scenes. PIV now also includes UFRaw, which is used behind the scenes when you select a file for image format conversion.

Shenmue wanted a screensaver mode: there's an option for that in the config file too, so you can make a config file somewhere that includes "PIV_SCREENSAVER=true" (and probably some other options to make it start a looping slideshow with some interval between the slides), then call PIV on the files in that folder (using a command like "/usr/pandora/pnd_run.sh -p /path/to/piv.pnd -e run_vp -- --config /path/to/configfile /path/to/image/directory/*"), and it will show the images and immediately quit if there's any input (keypress, nub movement, touch).

Ekianjo had the idea of a comic / manga viewer mode. It was implemented as follows: If you put a file called ".comic" in an image directory (the file can be empty, it just has to be there), PIV will go into comic viewer mode, meaning: advanced functions are disabled (crop/delete/select etc), default zoom is "fit width", and the last shown image is remembered (so when you select the directory again, it will resume on the "last page" of your comic book).

Thanks for all your feedback! It really helps to improve things!

In my opinion, PIV is now stable and advanced enough to make me want to manage my own pictures on my Pandora instead of on my laptop - even though my laptop has way better hardware (in terms of processing power) and it even has an SD slot. The optimized JPEG viewing (and pre-loading) makes it noticeably faster on my Pandora than the default photo viewer I get on my laptop, tablet, desktop PC or SmartTV. The touch screen of the Pandora is very suitable to do cropping. The nubs are very nice for panning - it's as intuitive as the touch interfaces you typically get on phones or tablets, but with the major advantage that you don't have to put your fingers between your eyes and the screen ;) .
 
@ _wb_: Thank you.


@ekianjo: Hmm... I don't think I've made a lot of requests on this forum. On the contrary, you seem to have made a lot more than I have. Anyhow, I would not make any request if I knew how to do it myself. In addition, I wasn't pushing or anything. I made it clear that it's up to the dev weather he wants to do it or has time to do it. Not everyone is as smart as you, even though the Pandora is open and not a blackbox, to develop/script on the Pandora. Otherwise we wouldn't need devs. Yes, you can build yourself a rocket to go to the moon by using abundant online resources, but that's not the point and would take you a million years to complete. :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Can the program also be operated with commandline parameters?


Like: show a file, cropped to dimensions x y


Imageviewer --file foo.jpg --crop x y h w
 
Can the program also be operated with commandline parameters?


Like: show a file, cropped to dimensions x y


Imageviewer --file foo.jpg --crop x y h w
The only command-line parameters the viewer itself takes are the names of the files to view (and a few more parameters, but nothing advanced like crop dimensions).

However, in the PND there are also a copies of ImageMagick convert, of jpegtran (for lossless cropping/rotation of jpeg files), of exiv2, and so on. These are command-line tools and are meant to be operated from the commandline. PIV uses them behind the scenes, but in theory nothing stops you from mounting the PND and using those tools directly.
 
Hm. Yes, that's right.


Btw. if zenity dialog has bugs with detecting usbdrives, you could try to use gtkdialog.


But this bug could also be in the underlying gtk version we are using, not zenity. In this case we will have to wait for .next.
 
Thanks for implementing the ability to choose which order the images should be displayed in :) .
 
For info, we used PIV on the TGS to show how the Pandora could be used to browse an SDCard from a Camera.

The Camera was a Nikkon, and the SDCard was filled with both JPEG and the Nikkon Raw format (NEF files). The JPEG files were shown instantaneouly, and for the NEF files, the jpeg thumbnail seems to load (very low quality).
 
For info, we used PIV on the TGS to show how the Pandora could be used to browse an SDCard from a Camera.

The Camera was a Nikkon, and the SDCard was filled with both JPEG and the Nikkon Raw format (NEF files). The JPEG files were shown instantaneouly, and for the NEF files, the jpeg thumbnail seems to load (very low quality).
This problem is fixed in 0.4.1. The problem is that .NEF files look like slightly broken TIFF files of a thumbnail to an unsuspecting image viewer. So PIV ended up showing the embedded thumbnail instead of trying harder. Should be fine now (it should show a high res preview now).
 
When using PIV in TV-Out mode on my TV(either Main Layer or HW Scaler), the video out of Pandora stopped working when the following picture (PNG format) in the directory is hit.  When it came to this picture, the TV just blanked out, and I had to restart the Pandora for the TV-Out of anything to work again.  It's no porno picture so it shouldn't be censored :D .

pokemon10.png
 
Last edited by a moderator:
When using PIV in TV-Out mode on my TV(either Main Layer or HW Scaler), the video out of Pandora stopped working when the following picture in the directory is hit.  When it came to this picture, the TV just blanked out, and I had to restart the Pandora for the TV-Out of anything to work again.  It's no porno picture so it shouldn't be censored :D .
You should attach the picture with a TXT extension, because the forum changes it when included as image
 
When using PIV in TV-Out mode on my TV(either Main Layer or HW Scaler), the video out of Pandora stopped working when the following picture (PNG format) in the directory is hit.  When it came to this picture, the TV just blanked out, and I had to restart the Pandora for the TV-Out of anything to work again.  It's no porno picture so it shouldn't be censored :D .
I haven't tried PIV with TV-Out yet, it could be the case that the switching between resolutions causes trouble. The image you are having trouble with has a resolution that would give the hardware scaler a bit of downscaling work, so it could be that in combination with TV out, it's just too much. Can you check the output of dmesg?

Does the image show correctly on the Pandora screen?
 
Back
Top