What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

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przemoc
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What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

Post by przemoc »

Outside of Far Manager my favorite image viewer and browser is XnView MP, and it has not changed since decades (well, in the past there was no MP version).
But sometimes one may want to quickly view content, Quick view (Ctrl+Q) style, without leaving Far.

In the past I used Image viewer (last version from 2020-05-08) from farplugs, but it was always slow in rendering images, and it seemingly only works in legacy console - in Windows Terminal it shows only solid black color. So I would like to find some new robust solution if possible.

What Far Manager community uses nowadays for viewing images?
Are there any macros, plugins or CLI tools seamlessly integrating with Far allowing to show (overlay) image from active panel in passive panel?


I noticed there is PictureView 3 (RU discussion, RU news, PlugRing page), but haven't tested it yet. First post in RU discussion mentions PictureView3_20140813_last_xp.7z as the latest version that runs on WinXP and seems to be from 2014-08-13, and its PlugRing page was seemingly last updated on 2021-04-19. Is below one the last version? Is it considered feature complete and no longer developed/maintained?

Code: Select all

Version	:	3.2021.4.19
Far version	:	3.0.3000
Filename	:	PictureView3x64.7z
Is there anything else worth mentioning?
Last edited by przemoc on Sat 28 Feb, 2026 16:11, edited 1 time in total.
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HaRT
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What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

Post by HaRT »

przemoc wrote: Sat 28 Feb, 2026 16:09 Is below one the last version? Is it considered feature complete and no longer developed/maintained?
PictureView 3.2021.4.19 is the latest and is lazily maintained but not actively developed. In particular, it will not work windowed in Windows Terminal (only full-screen) and the author declined to make a version for arm64. Yet the JpegRec and WIC decoders were additionally fixed in Y2022. You can also add decoders for DjVu, ZX Spectrum graphics, and HEIC.
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What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

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przemoc wrote: Sat 28 Feb, 2026 16:09 Is there anything else worth mentioning?
Yes, LuaPicture
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What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

Post by przemoc »

HaRT wrote: Sat 28 Feb, 2026 18:50 PictureView 3.2021.4.19 is the latest and is lazily maintained but not actively developed. In particular, it will not work windowed in Windows Terminal (only full-screen) and the author declined to make a version for arm64. Yet the JpegRec and WIC decoders were additionally fixed in Y2022. You can also add decoders for DjVu, ZX Spectrum graphics, and HEIC.
Really appreciate that you collected those bits of information in one place. Unfortunately [x] Fullscreen on startup turned on requirement to make it work (switching Windows Terminal to full-screen or running in full-screen via wt --fullscreen are not sufficient), and relatively slow startup time (switching between images after loading is fast, though) make it unsuitable for me - it's quicker to simply run external XnView MP.
HaRT wrote: Sat 28 Feb, 2026 18:51Yes, LuaPicture
I didn't manage to make LuaPicture display anything. Well, except when [x] Console renderer (F4 in the viewer overrides for the session) was turned on, but that is a gimmick and barely usable in practice.

BTW I'm not sure which one was the culprit, but I observed a few times that Far Manager got stuck during quitting (F10) after viewing some images earlier.
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What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

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przemoc wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 00:41 relatively slow startup time (switching between images after loading is fast, though) make it unsuitable for me - it's quicker to simply run external XnView MP
I'm surprised to hear that it is slow for you. For me, it's generally faster than any other image viewer (especially when it comes to zooming and panning). When you just opened the very first image, and it was slow, can you please press CtrlIns — I hope it should copy technical data like image-file-name.png 862 x 482 x 32b 139% 1/1354 - PictureView by GDI+ : PNG 2+6+265ms <AutoY> which might shed some light on what exactly is slow for you (BTW this particular string is formed according to the following console title template set in the plugin's Advanced settings: \{S* \}\N \W x \H x \Bb\{T \Z%\{I \I\}\{P [\P]\} - PictureView by \D\{F : \F\}\{C [\C]\}\{M {\M}\} \Tms\{R <Rotation: \R>\}\{H <HFlip>\}\{V <VFlip>\}\{L <AutoLevels>\}\{Y <AutoY>\}\{A <Chroma: \A>\}\}).
przemoc wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 00:41 I didn't manage to make LuaPicture display anything
Most likely it's due to WT, I use the script in Win10 within ConHost (OpenConsole is fine too, unless the UseDX registry setting is turned on). I don't know how far script author's experiments with WT went. You're welcome to read the script's discussion using an automated translation and ask questions in English there.
przemoc wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 00:41 I observed a few times that Far Manager got stuck during quitting (F10) after viewing some images earlier.
I'd recommend that you upgrade your graphics drivers to the latest — it might improve things dramatically, especially with PictureView (in OpenConsole).
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What are your recommended image viewing solutions within Far?

Post by przemoc »

Firstly, apologies for such a delayed response.
HaRT wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 01:37 I'm surprised to hear that it is slow for you. For me, it's generally faster than any other image viewer (especially when it comes to zooming and panning).
Later parts of your messages indicated that using ConHost (or OpenConsole) is preferrable, so maybe some of my problems come from using Windows Terminal.

(I used to try to have Windows Console Host as a default terminal in W11 Settings > System > Advanced, mostly because it felt faster. But due to having issues with some tools, I think it might have been vscode or some other editor/IDE spawning terminals and no longer supporting/working properly with ConHost, I simply gave up at some point and switched to WT. WT has some nice features over ConHost, but requires some tuning to make it usable - like removing default unbearably slow Ctrl+V handler, and changing shortcuts for actions clashing with common Far shortcuts.)

My idea of quick viewing image does not need zooming or panning, so it is irrelevant in my case.
HaRT wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 01:37 When you just opened the very first image, and it was slow, can you please press CtrlIns — I hope it should copy technical data like image-file-name.png 862 x 482 x 32b 139% 1/1354 - PictureView by GDI+ : PNG 2+6+265ms <AutoY> which might shed some light on what exactly is slow for you (BTW this particular string is formed according to the following console title template set in the plugin's Advanced settings: \{S* \}\N \W x \H x \Bb\{T \Z%\{I \I\}\{P [\P]\} - PictureView by \D\{F : \F\}\{C [\C]\}\{M {\M}\} \Tms\{R <Rotation: \R>\}\{H <HFlip>\}\{V <VFlip>\}\{L <AutoLevels>\}\{Y <AutoY>\}\{A <Chroma: \A>\}\}).
To make it clear, the very first image load is always slow in Picture View 3, regardless of the image. (Below I use image.)

WT (with [x] Fullscreen on startup turned on to work at all):
(Ctrl+Ins does not work - I removed shortcut from wt, just in case, but it did not help), I get: {C:\Downloads} - Far 3.0.6644.0 x64 in clipboard)

Code: Select all

cold ~1200-3000ms
hot   500~1000ms
(In WT delay can vary noticeably)

ConHost (not fullscreen):

Code: Select all

cold sam-williams-4wnrpZtUmqU-unsplash.jpg   5184 x 3456 x 24b   27%   47/47   -   PictureView by JpegRec   [Progressive 420 q89 r0]   127+46+378ms
hot  sam-williams-4wnrpZtUmqU-unsplash.jpg   5184 x 3456 x 24b   27%   47/47   -   PictureView by JpegRec   [Progressive 420 q89 r0]   126+49+0ms
In WT it is unusable, in ConHost it is usable.
HaRT wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 01:37 Most likely it's due to WT, I use the script in Win10 within ConHost (OpenConsole is fine too, unless the UseDX registry setting is turned on). I don't know how far script author's experiments with WT went. You're welcome to read the script's discussion using an automated translation and ask questions in English there.
I have not retested LuaPicture with ConHost yet.
HaRT wrote: Tue 03 Mar, 2026 01:37 I'd recommend that you upgrade your graphics drivers to the latest — it might improve things dramatically, especially with PictureView (in OpenConsole).
I tend to use relatively recent graphics drivers for my NUC11PHKi7C.
iGPU: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics (Tiger Lake GT2) - 32.0.101.7084 DCH / Win11 64 (2026-01-15)
dGPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (TU106) - 32.0.15.9174 (NVIDIA 591.74) DCH / Win11 64 (2025-12-30)

Side-note: I can admit that in my setup USB-C output that I use (from iGPU) for my 4K monitor sometimes can go black under heavier graphics load (and then I have to blindly do some operation that will change displayed content to get the screen back), so there may be some level of instability (possibly coming from Intel's driver, unclear if it may be related to not using outdated OEM drivers), but whether it affects PictureView in any way, I am unable to tell.

BTW I came up with general idea of writing script that would run XnView MP with dynamically generated configuration and always on top active to "mimic" passive panel overlay display, but I have not even started prototyping it yet, as I will need to dig if obtaining active/passive panel's coordinates in regards to whole screen is possible/feasible from Lua in Far in WT and/or ConHost/OpenConsole.
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