WpfImageViewer

A simple fullscreen WPF-based image viewer that closes when you press Esc and also supports a slideshow mode.

Functionality / Usage

The image viewer can be used as a standalone application or its window for image viewing can be included as a dialog into another application. It supports animated GIFs and GIFVs and can either run them or show a preview image only. And it also supports normal and animated WebP images.

You can assign the application as default viewer for any supported media format, but especially for gif/gifv files, by using the windows explorer "open with" "choose another app" "always use this app" functionality.

Mouse

• Left mouse button: drag the image around the screen
  • double-click: choose a file/folder to show
• Right mouse button: copy directory of current image to clipboard
  • double-click: copy full path of current image to clipboard
• Middle mouse button: open Explorer with current file selected
• Mouse wheel: zoom in/out

Keyboard commands

• H/I/F1: show a help screen
• Esc: close help / stop slideshow / close application/window
• Home/End: first/last file in image list
• Left/Right: previous/next file in image list
• Spacebar: center image & reset zoom level / start/pause slideshow

in zoom mode

• Alt + Left/Right/Up/Down: move the image around

in slideshow mode

• PageUp/PageDown: change the image duration (1..30 seconds)

Config / Parameters

Some settings can be overridden in WpfImageViewer.exe.config.

• ApplicationTitle
  • set the name of the application, e.g. shown during Alt-Tab
  • default: Wpf Image Viewer
• BackgroundColor
  • set background color using a color name
  • default: Black
• CloseOnLostFocus
  • closes the application if no longer in focus
  • default: True
• ImageDurationSeconds
  • number of seconds to show the image in slideshow mode
  • default: 2 seconds
• IncludedFileExtensions
  • extensions to include when loading images from folder
  • include dot before extension, separate by only comma, no space
  • default: .bmp,.gif,.gifv,.jpeg,.jpg,.png,.tif,.tiff,.webp
• MsgColor
  • set message text color using a color name
  • default: Green
• MsgFadeoutSeconds
  • decimal value of seconds before status text disappears
  • default: 2 seconds
  • 0 disables the status text
  • a negative value disables fadeout
• RunAnimatedGifs
  • run the animated gif/gifv or show a preview only
  • default: True
• ShowHelpOnLoad
  • shows a help screen on application/dialog load
  • default: False
• ZoomMax
  • maximum zoom value
  • default: 5
• ZoomMin
  • minimum zoom value
  • default: 0.1
• ZoomStep
  • change in zoom value per step
  • default: 1.25

Usage as dialog inside another application

Either include the whole project to your solution or include a reference to the exe only. Then you can create a window object

WpfImageViewer.MainWindow wnd = new WpfImageViewer.MainWindow()
wnd.ShowDialog();

optionally you can use an overloaded constructor and specify non-default settings

// declaration of overloaded constructor
WpfImageViewer.MainWindow wnd = new WpfImageViewer.MainWindow(string folder, bool showHelpOnLoad, bool runAnimatedGifs, bool closeOnLostFocus,
    string backgroundColor, string msgColor, string includedFileExtensions, int imageDurationSeconds, double fadeoutSeconds, double zoomMin, double zoomMax, double zoomStep)

or if you only want to specify the folder to load:

// declaration of overloaded constructor
WpfImageViewer.MainWindow wnd = new WpfImageViewer.MainWindow(string folder)

Enable Gifv file thumbnails in Windows Explorer (Win 10)

By default no thumbnails are shown for gifv files even if the content is a standard gif file. But you can assign the standard handler for gif files so that thumbnails for gifv files (with gif content) are provided by windows itself.

To enable thumbnails for the current user only, copy the following lines into a text file named e.g. enable.reg and double-click it to import the setting into the windows registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.gifv\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{C7657C4A-9F68-40fa-A4DF-96BC08EB3551}"

To enable thumbnails for all users on the system, copy the following lines into a text file named e.g. enable.reg and double-click it to import the setting into the windows registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.gifv\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{C7657C4A-9F68-40fa-A4DF-96BC08EB3551}"

Afterwards you need to restart your pc or at least log out and in before thumbnails are shown.