Using Windows 10 Photo Viewer from Opus

Help & Support
1

Hi,
Using a registered version of Directory Opus 12.3 x64 under Windows 10x64 - mostly a really great app which I try to use as my full time File Explorer.

The problem is when I click a picture in a folder, the Windows Photo viewer is used - which is what I want....
But then I cannot use the keys or arrows to view the next picture in the folder.
I have to close the Photo app and then open the next picture to view it.
I want to achieve the same effect as Windows File Explorer where I can open a picture and then continue to view the rest in the folder by using my arrow keys or clicking the arrows on the Photo app.
Please tell me how I can do this.

I know Opus has a built in viewer - but it always seems to zoom the picture to high zoom and the navigation is not as intuitive. Thanks in advance for help.

2

That is the Windows Photos app choosing to do things differently depending on how it is launched, and there's no other documented way to launch it that we are aware of, as with a lot of the "Metro" side of Windows.

The same problem happens if you launch it via the Open With dialog in Opus, but not the same dialog in Explorer, even though both dialogs arre handled entirely by the operating system. It seems Explorer does something special, and possibly undocumented, when it launches "Metro" applications. I can only speculate but it may have an API to pass the application the list of other files in the same folder, instead of the application working that out for itself, but I've never seen that API documented if there is such a thing.

See my reply here for more detail.

3

Thanks Leo.
I clicked on the link and reverted back to the built in Viewer.
However, I cant figure out the following:

  1. How to configure the arrows keys to navigate through the pictures ie. left / right as Prev/Next - you mention 'Create a new Viewer Hotkey' - how do I do that?
  2. Also, when I do use the internal viewer, the picture always appears zoomed into 100% - which for a high res picture only shows a part of it. I then have to zoom out to see the full picture. How do I get it to fit to screen by default?

Apologies if the answers are obvious - but since your app is so configurable - its a bit overwhelming / confusing.

Thanks,
Umer

4
  1. Settings > Customize Toolbars / Keys, click the icon top-left above the list and choose New Viewer Hotkey. The commands you want are:
  • Show VIEWERCMD=prev
  • Show VIEWERCMD=next

Rest should be mostly self-explanatory, but ask if you need help.

  1. Change Settings > Preferences / Viewer / Behavior / Reset zoom level for each picture to... as desired.
5

Hi,

I am having the same issue. And I think there is no solution for this yet?
Since you mentioned there is no documentation how it works, I wanted share a bug about it which I think may help.

When I right click an image inside Dopus and choose file I see this context menu.

c33F5bL
c33F5bL.png1382×995 246 KB

The command line I underlined goes directly to the edit window in windows 10 photos, which is this.

cMk9vxl
cMk9vxl.jpg1285×1004 358 KB

This is a fresh install with latest windows 10 64 bit.
Version: 1703
Build: 15063.632

Dopus: 12.6 x64
Build: 6369

I hope this may shed some light on the issue and you can add this to Dopus. Because I want to use them both but having to open each image one by one is annoying and time consuming.

Thanks...

6

The right click menu name is fixed in the current Opus betas.

7

It's 2019 and the problem is still there.
It's really annoying. How did the Total Commander guys solve this?

8

Which problem? The menu name? We solved that ages ago. Which version are you using?

9

Sorry, didn't realise there were multiple topics.
I was talking about the inability to use the Windows 10 Photos app's ability to cycle through images..
Using the latest version.

10

AFAIK there is no way to support the next/prev list in the Windows 10 Photos app.

It does not work from anything other than File Explorer.

It does not even work if you run start C:\blah\test.png from a Command Prompt.

It simply will not generate a next/prev list of images by itself, when launched for a particular file. We can't do anything about that, other than suggest using a better viewer.

It seems to be designed to suck or be fed the list of files directly out of File Explorer's memory, via some obscure (quite possibly undocumented) API.

It was apparently written by someone who did not consider that anything other than File Explorer would ever launch the program, even other parts of the Windows OS that don't involve third-party software.

This is the Photos app's problem, not something Opus is doing wrong. The Photos app just doesn't work properly when launched in a normal way, and that includes when it is launched via a basic ShellExecuteEx call or the standard 'start' command in a Command Prompt. The Photos app is garbage.

It's not just me making this up to shift the blame to the Photos app. Total Commander's author said the same (at least in 2015; I don't know if they've found something new since then that we aren't aware of over here):

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As far as I can tell, they didn't.

I just installed the current version of Total Commander on an untouched Windows 10 machine, where the Windows 10 "Photos" Metro app is set as the default image viewer.

Double-clicking an image in TC doesn't launch the Window 10 "Photos" app, let alone enable the next/prev list in it. It launches the old Windows Vista "Windows Photo Viewer" Win32 app. This is done on purpose by Total Commander, due to this very problem:

Clipboard%20Image
Clipboard%20Image1750×253 34.3 KB

Next/prev works in the Vista photo viewer, but that's also true if you launch it from Opus. The Vista photo viewer was better written and knew how to generate the next/prev list itself.

If you want to use the old Vista photo viewer in Opus, you can do that by setting it as the default image viewer, or adding overrides for specific types if you don't want it to be the default for everything.

Diverting you to the Vista app doesn't make sense in Opus, since Opus defaults to using its own image viewer (where next/prev works fine, however you launch it). If you're using the Windows 10 app in Opus, it's because you've explicitly asked for it, so we need to respect that choice, even if we disagree to it due to the Windows 10 app being garbage. :slight_smile:

Long story short: I don't think we can make next/prev work in the Windows 10 Photos app. Microsoft could fix it by fixing their code. Or you could fix it by using a different/better image viewer (also the conclusion in the TC threads I linked, unless something's changed very recently but they still launch the Vista app by default for some reason).

Video showing what happens with File Explorer, the 'start' command, TC, and Opus:

11

Thank you for a very extensive reply. I've just checked myself and you are absolutely correct, the Total Commander also lacks this ability. Don't know why I was so sure of the opposite, sorry.

So I've just switched to your built-in image app. It is actually more powerful than the stock Win10 Photos (big surprise, I know).

Thank you very much for your support and for making this great software.

2 Likes
12

Onre more thing...when rotating pictures, they do not save automatically. The "Save" function doesn't work either, I have to chose "Save As" and then overwrite it.
Is there a quicker way?

13

Hey there,

Just use honeyview. It is light-weight, fast, easy to use and have everything you need from a photo viewer. It also has some capabilities like converting images.

Thanks...

14

This is no longer about "Using Windows 10 Photo Viewer from Opus" so it should be in its own thread. But there is already this thread with an answer for how to do what you want: