KuickShow v0.6

KuickShow is a comfortable image browser/viewer. It displays a filebrowser
where you can select (doubleclick, Return-key or "view" in popupmenu) images
which are then shown.
The following image formats are supported: jpg, gif, tiff, png, bmp, psd, xpm, xbm, pbm, eim.
Images can be displayed either in an own window, as large as the image,
or fullscreen. This is configurable in the options dialog.

The options dialog has some more possibilities:
  • images can be automatically shrunk to fit onto the screen, if they are larger


  • you can configure, whether images should show up all in an own window, or always in the same


  • you can set the delay time for a slide show


  • you can tell the browser which filetypes to show


  • you can tweak the speed/quality ratio

If you look for a certain file, just enter the first characters of its filename (in the browser). A small edit window pops up in the bottom-right corner. Once a matching file is found, it is highlighted. Leave the edit-window by pressing return or escape.

Image window:

Keyboard shortcuts
  • PageDown loads the next image
  • PageUp loads the previous image
  • Home loads the first image
  • End loads the last image
  • + zooms into the image
  • - zooms out of the image
  • * flips the image horizontally
  • / flips the image vertically
  • 7 rotates 270° clockwise ( = 90 degrees counterclockwise )
  • 9 rotates 90° clockwise
  • arrow keys move the image (or rather you, the viewer) if it is larger than the screen
  • Return toggles between fullscreen and window mode
  • Spacebar toggles showing the browser
  • Esc closes the image window (and kuickshow too, if you don't have a browser window open
  • b / B lightens / darkens the image
  • c / C adds / removes contrast
  • g / G more / less gamma
  • o shows image in original size (only useful when automatic up/downscaling is active)
  • Enter rerenders the image in default settings/size
  • Ctrl-s opens a filedialog to save the current image
  • Delete deletes the current image
  • Shift-Delete deletes the current image without asking
  • F1 opens online help
  • Ctrl-q quits KuickShow
Mouse usage
  • right button opens popupmenu with several options
  • left button held + move moves image, if it doesn't fit into the window
  • Shift + left button held + move let's you mark a rectangle to zoom into
  • left doubleclick closes the the current image

Browser window:

Keyboard shortcuts
  • Return enters a directory, or opens an image window
  • PageDown advances one page
  • PageUp moves back one page
  • Home selects the first file/directory
  • End selects the last file/directory
  • Spacebar toggles showing the browser, if an imagewindow is open
  • "any character" opens a small editfield used for "filecompletion". Enter the first characters of a filename to search for, and if found, it will be selected
  • Ctrl-g "goto", let's you enter a directory, where to go to
  • Delete deletes the current file
  • Shift-Delete deletes the current file without asking
  • F1 opens online help
  • Ctrl-q quits KuickShow
Mouse usage
  • Single leftclick enters a directory, or selects an image window
  • Single rightclick opens popup window with several options
  • doubleclick loads selected image / enters selected directory

Commandline parameters

You can pass KuickShow a commandline parameter: Start it as kuickshow /home/user/images/bla.jpg The image bla.jpg will be displayed and the browser will show you the directory contents of /home/user/images. The browser is hidden until you hit the space bar. If you just give a directory as commandline, e.g. kuickshow /usr/local/images/ it will just open that directory. You can also drop images from the KDE filemanager onto the image window (not the filebrowser!).

Bugs / Limitations

  • Printing does work, but is very limited. Printed images are stretched to fully fit on the page, which is probably not what you always want :-}
  • KuickShow crashes, when you are sorting files from the popupmenu. This is due to a bug in old kdelibs, it is fixed in KDE 1.1.1
  • The fullscreen mode doesn't work properly, kpanel covers a part of the screen. This is KDE 1.1 only, KDE 1.0 and KDE 1.1.1 don't have show this behavior.
  • Filebrowser gives lots of asserts and flickers. This happens only in old kdelibs, < KDE 1.1
  • Somehow, the fullscreen mode doesn't work correctly, when kwm is in "ShapeMode", i.e. using shaped windows from some theme, and also may not work properly with other non-KDE-compliant windowmanagers.
  • You can't browse multiple directories by opening more than one image window, only the one, shown in the filebrowser.

Carsten Pfeiffer carpdjih@sp.zrz.tu-berlin.de / pfeiffer@kde.org