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Posted by: fcassia Nov 6 2008, 01:52 AM

Hi Peter,

To this day PMView continues to be my favorite image viewer across OSs (I even installed it on WINE with great results, more about that on an upcoming article by me).

Yet, I find myself losing a lot of time using PMView to adjust images (brightness, Gamma correction, etc) yet then loading the same bitmaps on Paint Shop Pro just to add some text caption or drawing a circle on a section.

Instead of expanding PMView to suppot basic tools like drawing circles and text, I think you could add a SINGLE FEATURE that would be VERY EASY to implement yet practically DO ANYTHING.

I mean "File -> [R] external program (on this file)".

The way I see it, one could configure this option on the PMView Preferences screen, allowing the user to define "n" sub-options.

Example:

File->[R]un external->[app name 1]
[app name 2]
[app name 3]

So for instance I'd go to View->Preferences and setup application #1 as "Paint shop pro" with path "C:\program files\paint shop pro\psp.exe"
then I'd configure external application #2 as "Mail" with path "c:\program files\mozilla thunderbird\thunderbird.exe"

etc

So when I go to File->[R]un external app I'd see the sub-options

File->[R]un external->[Paint Shop Pro]
[Thunderbird]
PMview would just then save the current file (to update any changes) and then invoke the external app with the current file's file name as its argument.


Kinda like "shell C:\program files\paint shop pro\psp.exe %1"

Think about it for a moment. It would be a SINGLE change, very easy to do, and the result would be allowing PMView to call ANY program, with unlimited possibilities.

Thoughts? Comments?

Hope you like this idea. It clearly is an improvement over my 2005 suggestion about implementing fixed "e-mail this file" or "Load in Bitmap Editor" functions.

FC

Posted by: Peter Dec 5 2008, 05:57 PM

This is an excellent idea. I will consider adding it to the next build!

Thanks,
Peter

Posted by: asavage Mar 11 2010, 12:47 PM

Is this feature still on your "To-Do" list?

I would love to be able to chain an external image editing program from within PMV, and have PMV reload the image from disk when the external app exits.

Posted by: Peter Mar 11 2010, 02:35 PM

Having PMView monitor when other apps exit is a NO NO!

PMView could monitor for a file change and then automatically reload the file if it changes.

Yes, this feature will be added, but probably not in v3.60

Posted by: asavage Mar 11 2010, 03:40 PM

Great!
Thanks, Peter.