Viewer Pane
The Viewer Pane is an integrated image and document viewer that can be
displayed within the Lister. When it is enabled, it will automatically show (if
possible) the contents of the most recently selected file. It provides a very
quick way to preview files - simply navigate to the folder in question, and
click on the file to show it. Using the cursor keys you can easily move up and
down a list of files, viewing them as you go.
The easiest way to display the Viewer Pane in a Lister is with the button
() on the default toolbar. You can also press
F7.
With the viewer pane displayed, viewing a file is as simple as selecting it
in the file display. Opus can natively show many types of image files, and comes
with plugins to display
common document formats like Word and PDF files (providing suitable viewers are
installed in the system). The title bar of the viewer pane displays the name of
the currently viewed file, as well as some information about it - if it's an
image format, it will generally display the resolution and type of image. For
files that require the use of a plugin, the name of the plugin will generally be
shown.
There are a number of buttons in the viewer pane's title bar:
- Previous File : Moves the
selection in the file display to the previous file (and displays it in the
viewer pane).
- Next File : Moves the
selection to the next file.
- Rotate Left : Rotate the currently displayed
image 90 degrees to the left. Note that this does not modify the image on disk
- the rotation is not permanent, it simply affects the current display in the
viewer pane. If you want to permanently rotate an image you can use the Image
Conversion function.
- Rotate Right : Rotate the currently displayed
image 90 degrees to the right.
- Zoom In :
Zoom into (magnify) the currently displayed image. You can also zoom in by
holding the Control key down and turning the mouse wheel.
- Zoom Out :
Zoom out of the currently displayed image. You can also zoom out by holding
the Control key down and turning the mouse wheel.
- Original Size : Display the current image at its
original (full) size.
- Fit To Page : Scale the image to fit to the
size of the window. This setting only scales large images down to fit in the
window - it does not scale images up that are smaller than the window.
- Grow To Page : Scale the image to fit to the
size of the window. By contrast with Fit To Page, this
setting will scale a small image up to fill the window as well as scaling a
large image down.
- Toggle Layout : This
will toggle the layout of the viewer pane between vertical (displayed to the
right of the Lister, as in the above screenshot) and horizontal (displayed at
the bottom of the Lister).
- Close : Closes
the viewer pane.
There are a number of options on the Viewer / Viewer Pane page in
Preferences that let you control the appearance and behavior of the viewer pane.
One of them, Show control bar, lets you enable an additional
toolbar at the bottom of the viewer pane.
Many of the functions accessible from this toolbar are the same as those
in the title bar (although the buttons are bigger, and thus easier to click!) -
the buttons are Previous File (), Next File (), Rotate Left (), Rotate Right
(), Zoom In
(), Zoom Out (), Original Size
(), Fit To Page
() and Grow To Page
(). The remaining buttons
are:
- Hex View : This switches the display of
the current file into hex view. Hex view uses the supplied text plugin (in hex
mode) to display the binary contents of the file. Click the button again to
switch back to the normal display of the image.
- Slideshow : This button enables slideshow
mode. Opus will begin showing a slideshow (in the viewer pane) of files in the
current folder, starting from the current selection. You can adjust the speed
of the slideshow from the Viewer / Viewer Pane page
in Preferences.
- Full Screen : This command clears the
current file from the viewer pane, and re-opens it in the standalone image viewer, in full-screen mode.
You can leave full-screen mode (and remain in the standalone viewer) by
pressing the Enter key, or press Escape to
close the separate viewer and return to the Lister.
- Print : Lets you print the currently
viewed image or document.
- Settings : This is a shortcut that takes
you to the Viewer /
Viewer Pane page in Preferences.
Depending on the plugin (if any) used to view a particular file, not all of
the above functions may be supported. For example, some plugins may not support
rotating the display, and in this case the rotate left and rotate right
functions would be unavailable.
The viewer pane also has a context menu - although this too can vary
depending on the plugin - accessed by right-clicking on the currently displayed
image.
The commands available in the context menu are:
- View Size: This lets you change the magnification of
the currently displayed image - various preset levels are provided, as well as
the two 'fit' modes described above. The option to Tile the
image is also available.
- Rotate View: Rotate the currently displayed image.
- Gamma Correction: Modify the gamma correction of the
current image - useful if you need to compensate for a darker or brighter
monitor.
- Select All: Select the entire image for copying to the
clipboard. You can also select areas of the image using the mouse -
by default you need to hold the Shift key down and click and
drag to select a rectangular part of the image. If you disable
the Scroll with left mouse button option on the
Viewer Pane
Preferences page then you don't need to hold the Shift
key down.
- Copy All: Copy the entire image to the clipboard. When an
area of the image has been selected (as with the Select All
command, or with the mouse as described above), this
command changes to Copy, and will only copy the selected
area.
- Print: Print the currently displayed image.
- Set As Desktop Wallpaper: Set the image as your desktop
wallpaper. You can choose a number of wallpaper styles from the sub-menu.
- Properties: Display the properties of the currently
displayed image.
- Refresh: Refresh the image. This can be useful if the
image or document is being continuously modified in the background (for
example, a log file).
- Use Plugin: This lets you modify which plugin (if any) is
displaying the image. Not all plugins can handle all types of file, of course,
but it may be the case that you have multiple plugins installed that can
handle the same file, and so this menu lets you experiment with switching
between them. You can modify the default order that plugins are used (and also
settings that control individual plugins) from the Viewer / Viewer Plugins page in
Preferences.
- File: This displays the standard system context menu for
the currently displayed file.