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Marc Wandschneider is a professional software developer with well over fifteen years of industry experience (yes, he really is that old). He travels the globe working on interesting projects and gives talks at conferences and trade shows whenever possible.

My Publications:

My book, "Core Web Application Programming with PHP and MySQL" is now available everywhere, including Amazon.com

My "PHP and MySQL LiveLessons" DVD Series has just been published by Prentice-Hall, and can be purchased on Amazon, through Informit, or Safari


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Aug 26, 2007 | 00:21:08
Announcing JustLooking (Mac Image Viewer) 3.0, available for Download
By marcwan
NOTE: JustLooking 3.3 has been released. You should really be using that version instead. It’s much cooler!

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availablity of JustLooking 3.0. JustLooking is a program to view pictures and images on your Mac OS X (Tiger) based computer. JustLooking is a Universal Binary, and can be run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. The program is and will always be very free.

Please note that I pay for my own bandwidth, so please try to use the BitTorrent version of the download if you are able to—it’s about a 2MB file and takes about 45 seconds.

JustLooking 3.0 pretty much contains more new features and code than all the previous versions of JustLooking combined! New features include:

  • New transition effects in full screen mode.
  • A thumbnails / preview window with thumbnails of all windows in the same directory.
  • Image resizing support.
  • Recent Images file menu.
  • A new look and feel for the toolbar.
  • Toolbar buttons can be made small or large.
  • An Update Checking system to look for new versions of JustLooking (including automatic updates).
  • Saving of Images to a number of different formats with configurable settings (including animated GIFs).
  • (optional) Honouring Exif Orientation value when showing images.
  • (optional) The mouse wheel can move between images now.
  • Stretch to Window mode has been added. It can be the default mode.
  • (optional) Disable Screen Saver in Full Screen Slide Mode.
  • Hide Cursor in full screen slide show.
  • (optional) When returning from slide show, viewer window moves to same image.
  • DEL key deletes images.
  • Arrow keys now work in full screen mode.
  • Delete confirmation is optional now (preferences).
  • There is a new Image Info Window.
  • (optional) Automatically open first file in last folder visited.
  • (optional) program can go directly to full screen slide show.
  • A new context menu has been added.
  • Background colour can be changed.
  • Set as Desktop Background option.
  • File Associations preference has been fixed.
  • Lots of bug fixes.

Note that image saving has been expanded to allow you to save files in any of 5 supported formats (more coming). I currently do not preserve meta-data (EXIF, PNG info, etc), nor do I support animated GIFs, but will support this in the next version hopefully. You can now also scale and save images, which will be quite convenient.

JustLooking 3.0 includes the following language translations:

  • French
  • Italian
  • Swedish
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish
  • Dutch
  • Slovenian (new!)
  • Polish (new!)

Due to the large number of changes in 3.0, the following translations have not been included, and will hopefully be added to a language update in a few weeks as I get help from users:

  • Russian
  • German
  • Norwegian
  • Finnish
  • Chinese (Traditional)

Thanks to all the people who help out with translations. Shipping this program in multiple languages is extremely cool! (I actually have a Hungarian version in the works too. Super cool!)

As always, I’d love to hear your comments and feedback on 3.0, and hopefully there won’t be many problems that need fixing!! I have been using 3.0 for a few weeks here by myself without much trouble, so I hope this good luck continues!

New for Version 2.5:

  • Core Image, OpenGL, and Quartz drawing for faster image processing and transitions.
  • Deleting the last image in a directory caused an exception an error message bug fixed.
  • Rotating zoomed images not updating scroll bars bug fixed.
  • Dutch/Flemish version added (thanks to Olaf de Vries).
  • Added some people to the credits whom I had forgotten. Apologies Emmanuel and Mathias!

New for Version 2.0.2:

  • The arrow key navigation problem that some, but not all, users have been seeing has been fixed.
  • Support for the following languages has been added:
    • Portuguese (Brasilian)
    • Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)

New for Version 2.0.1:

  • The following localisations have been added or updated:
    • Norwegian
    • Swedish
    • Simplified Chinese
    • Italian (updated)
    • German (updated)
    • French (updated)
  • I have been working on adding accessibilty features to JustLooking, but the docs on this are kinda monstrous, and it’s taking some time to work through.
  • There are no major bug fixes in the 2.0.1 release. I am investigating a couple of common problems relating to arrow keys on certain older macs, and will post a fix for that as soon as possible.

New for Version 2.0:

  • Based on the suggestions and feedback from some users, I have completely redesigned and rewritten the user interface for JustLooking, implementing the smoked-black look that a lot of applications are moving towards in Leopard.
  • Image resizing has been made significantly faster and less memory intensive. Image rendering is also much quicker.
  • There is now remote control support in slide show mode:
    • next/prev image
    • pause/restart
    • exit
    • increase/decrease show time by 2 sec
  • Basic saving of rotated images for PNG, GIF (non-animated only), JPEG, TIFF, and BMP file formats.
  • GIF file support has been completely fixed and is now properly working for all animated and transparent images.
  • Hold down “option” key on startup causes app to go to full screen slide show.
  • I have fixed a number of bugs in the program.
CUTOFF

Introduction

Welcome to JustLooking, an image viewing program for Mac OS X. JustLooking is designed to be used instead of the “Preview” application on your computer for browsing images. In particular, it has the following differences:

  • It focuses on files and directories instead of lists of files. Thus, once you load a file, you can easily navigate through all other files in the same directory.
  • It displays images at their native resolution instead of interpreting DPI information stored in the image meta-data. While images are printed at the maximum resolution possible, on screen they are displayed pixel-by-pixel.
  • Being designed more for viewing of Images, it properly shows animated GIF files.
  • The entire program can easily be manipulated and powered by simple keystrokes for a quick and pleasant viewing experience.
  • JustLooking also supports such basic features as printing and rotating and will hopefully prove to be sufficiently functional for most users’ needs.

It should be noted that the application cannot completely replace Preview, as there are a number of features in the latter that JustLooking simply does not have, such as selecting and copying regions, saving images in various formats, and viewing of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Requirements and Installation

Running JustLooking is quite simple, and the only requirements are:

  • Mac OS X 10.4 or greater
  • 256MB RAM
  • 4MB free disk space

JustLooking is installed on any new machine by simply dragging it into the Applications folder.

Credits

JustLooking was designed, written, and partially localised (French, Italian, German, Spanish, and some Chinese) by Marc Wandschneider here in Beijing over a couple of casual months. I sat down to write it as a replacement for Preview, as I found the latter to rarely operate in a way that I wanted it to. I tend to keep directories full of images, whether they be traveling, family, or junk I collect from the Intarwebs.

Finder and Preview rarely let me select and view more than a couple hundred of images at a time, and I have large numbers of folders with more files than that.

The following people have helped with Localisation of JustLooking:

  • German – Stefanie Schau
  • French – Laurent Molina
  • Italian – Roberto Bellina
  • Spanish – Carola Clavo
  • Russian – Sergey Melnik
  • Finnish – Markus Peltomäki
  • Norwegian – Geir Werner Hagen
  • French – Emmanuel Lemor
  • Swedish – Henrik Östlund
  • Swedish – Mathias Sjöström
  • Chinese (Simplified) – Zhang Tongzhu
  • Chinese (Simplified) – Emma Liu
  • Italian – Marco Frasca
  • German – Marc’s dad.
  • Chinese (Traditional) – Nitoc Taiwan
  • Portuguese (Brasilian) – Helvécio Mafra
  • Dutch / Flemish – Olaf de Vries
  • Slovenian – Miha Rekar
  • Polish – Tymon Kokoszka
  • Chinese (Simplified) – Jack Zhong

Help us Out

Speak a language that isn’t in the list of currently localised languages? See some mistakes in the current translation for a particular language? If you’d like to help or offer corrections, I’d love the help. The more languages, the better!!

Coming Up

I’m thinking of adding the following features in future versions.

  • Support for saving more image file formats.
  • Resizing and saving of images.
  • Batch resizes and renames (the holy grail of free image programs).
  • Support for more resizing algorithms.

I’d love to hear if users have any suggestions. Feel free to contact me with any features you’d like to see!

Comments (35) Add Comment | Tags: justlooking mac osx image graphics photos software viewer update
Polish Config Wizard
Posted By: marcwan Aug 26, 2007 19:14:34
Sorry to those users who saw a Polish Configuration Wizard on application start-up. I have fixed this bug and re-uploaded it to the server. Please re-download if you're confused as to why there is a big dialog you don't understand at all :-).

You can delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.chipmunkninja.JustLooking.plist to reset the JustLooking configuration and re-run the config wizard.

Posted By: remain Aug 26, 2007 20:16:27
Hi!

Version 3.0 is very good! Very nice job!

A few bugs to report...

Well, first, glad to see that the slide show issue is fixed; pressing Command F during a slide show no longer opens a 2nd slide show (then 3rd, 4th, ...).

However, the issue can still occur.

If you start a slide show, then use Exposé or Command ` to go back to the main window, then click the "Play" button, it will still start a 2nd slide show (then 3rd, 4th, ...)

I think that one solution would be to have "Play" turn into "Stop" when there is a slide show, but this doesn't make that much sense, since you're not "supposed to" be able to leave the slide show and go back to the window.

So another solution which might be better would be to have the slide show stop when you focus the main window (or focus any other window)?

Ah yes, another issue:

The ONLY way to stop a slide show is to press the Escape key. (Of course, you can also quit JustLooking, but... well, not the best solution. ;p )

In a slide show, File > Close (Command W) doesn't do anything, and View > Start Slide Show (Command F) cannot be used (inactive).

Basically, there's NO way to stop a slide show with the mouse only.

I suggest that in a slide show, View > Start Slide Show (Command F) becomes Stop Slide Show. Or since there's a context menu in the main window now, perhaps also add a context menu in the slide show with the item "Stop Slide Show"

One more issue:

When you open JustLooking by opening a file, the focus is on the first toolbar button, which is Move to Trash. So basically, pressing Space will act "by default" (if you don't move the focus) as Move to Trash.

Note that this won't happen if you open JustLooking directly and not through opening a file.

Also, on the other hand, pressing Control F5 (the default key for "Move focus to the window toolbar") won't focus the first item of the toolbar.

I hope these bug reports help.

Thanks for your time!
Okay,
Posted By: marcwan Aug 26, 2007 23:58:15
who's the idiot running a computer from Romania that downloaded this program 5000 times in the last 6 hours? That's a lot of wasted bandwidth!

Bandwidth
Posted By: Martin Aug 27, 2007 02:22:52
Excellent, just remove the direct download and leave only the .torrent. I can provide some badndwidth if ya need a mirror.

Great program! Thanks.

Martin.
WOW
Posted By: tototoolco Aug 27, 2007 11:18:49
wow, I have been looking for this gem for years!
Great work !
Posted By: Moonlander Aug 28, 2007 08:09:19
Hi,
Version 3 seems to weortk real good.
The one problem that i have is when i am in full screen mode how do we advasnce the pictures and finallyhow do we get out of full screen mode
i believe that there should be a button to be able to stop the full sreeen
mode,
Please Advise.Moonlander
Feature Request
Posted By: Martin Sep 05, 2007 06:08:56
Apart from other comments and suggestions, one feature I'd like to see is the ability to Copy (cmd-c) the current image to the clipboard, just like in Preview. ;)

Nice and thanks.

Martin.
martin@marconcini.com.ar
Context menus
Posted By: marcwan Sep 10, 2007 23:27:43
I actually have context menus (but without editor support right now), except that they only work for actual right clicks. I guess for notebooks, when you CTRL+Click, the OS doesn't convert that into a right click event. I'll fix that for 3.1, which should be coming out this week sometime ....

New Macbook Features
Posted By: marcwan Jan 06, 2009 20:48:55
No, I don't have a new unibody mac lying around, so I can't test out the functionality. I've also kept the program Tiger-compatible for a long time. However, maybe it's time to move to Leopard-only?

Xcode?
Posted By: Mihai Feb 17, 2009 07:11:52
Thank you for this app!
In what language is written ? C++ ?
Language?
Posted By: marcwan Feb 17, 2009 18:12:12
JustLooking is written with Xcode as the primary build system, but everything is written in Objective-C. I've been slowly moving away from C++ towards other languages over the years, and Objective-C is a brilliant mix of OOP features with a low-level procedural language like C.

Next and previous buttons don't always work
Posted By: Wayne Torborg Jun 12, 2009 12:35:18
Hello:

I've found that the "next file" arrow button sometimes skips files in sequence or jumps ahead perhaps 10 files at a time. Anybody else experiencing this? I'm running an old G5 powermac with Tiger.

Otherwise, I love this viewing utility.


-------------------------------------------
Wayne Torborg
Director of Digital Collections and Imaging
The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
Saint John's University
Bush Center, PO Box 7300
Collegeville, MN 56321-7300
wtorborg@csbsju.edu
www.hmml.org
http://www.hmml.org/wtorborg
-------------------------------------------
Head Honcho
Posted By: Lothario Jun 14, 2009 20:40:26
It sure looks great from a theoretical perspective but I haven't been able to get this program to load anything at all. I like thinking I have at least some degree of computer savvy. ( like thinking ) But either I'm a huge dummy or somethings wrong with this software.

I'm hoping that the first option is the case and that there is a simple answer to this. But if thats' so then it seems you still have to make this softare just a tad bit more "dummy proof" if you catch my drift.

Still optimistic though with benefit of doubt having been given.

Lothario
Still Refuses to Load of Any Files
Posted By: Lothario Jun 14, 2009 22:38:58
selected "take ownership of all file types" in preferences quit the program, clicked on a PDF file and it opened up with Safari!

So what did I do wrong?

If I were the impulsive type who demands instant gratification I'd say this is a piece of crap.

But lucky I'm not that type.

I almost am though. :D

PS. My internal HD died recently ( thus my need for a rudimendary image viewer ) so I am running off of an emergency "e drive" ( courtesy of TechTool 4 ) Could that be an issue? The eDrive still has nearly 3GB of diskspace overhead though so it's not a system disk space issue. ( I would presume at least )

I'm still hoping to won over by JustLooking as i've still not tried redownloading Preview but it doesn't look so hopeful at the moment!
@Lothario
Posted By: marcwan Jun 15, 2009 07:01:50
Good Sir!

PDF files are something that JustLooking has never supported (as mentioned in the docs). However, it's something I'm definitely looking at for 4.0, since it's pretty much the only reason I use Preview.app at all any more.

JustLooking has no disk space requirements, so that will definitely not be a problem for you.

Good luck!

Justlooking doesn't open
Posted By: marcwan Nov 17, 2009 08:18:04
can you go to /var/log/system.log and see if JustLooking is mentioned when you do that? i.e. try to open justlooking, and then right after look at the last few hundred lines of /var/log/system.log and see if there are some error messages printed out or something.

Definitely sounds unusual.
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