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pqiv(1) General Commands Manual pqiv(1)

NAME

pqiv - powerful quick image viewer

SYNOPSIS

pqiv [options] [filename(s)...]

DESCRIPTION

pqiv is a simple command line image viewer inspired by qiv. It is highly customizable and supports a variety of formats.

OPTIONS

Draw pqiv's window borderless and transparent. In window mode, a mouse click activates and deactivates window decorations.
In slideshow mode (Activated by --slideshow or key s by default), cycle through images at this rate. Floating point values are supported, e.g. use 0.5 to move through the images at a rate of two images per second.
Start in fullscreen mode. Fullscreen can be toggled by pressing f at runtime by default.
Fade between images. See also --fade-duration.
Initially hide the info box. Whether the box is visible can be toggled by pressing i at runtime by default.
Specify the Pango font string for the info box. Note that the font size will be scaled to the window.
pqiv normally processes all command line arguments before displaying its main window. With this option, the window is shown as soon as the first image has been found and loaded.
Instead of storing images in the order they are given on the command line and found within directories, sort them. The default order is by name (natural order). See --sort-key to change the order.
Set the initial window position. POSITION may either be
screen coordinates, or
to not position the window at all.
Read additional filenames/folders from the standard input. This option conflicts with --actions-from-stdin.
Start in slideshow mode. Slideshow mode can be toggled at runtime by pressing s by default.
Scale images up to fill the whole screen. This can be toggled at runtime by pressing t by default. See also --disable-scaling.
Set the title of the window. pqiv substitutes several variables into TITLE:
$BASEFILENAME
The base file name of the current file (e.g. `image.png'),
$FILENAME
The file name of the current file (e.g. `/home/user/image.png'),
$WIDTH
The width of the current image in pixels,
$HEIGHT
The height of the current image in pixels,
$ZOOM
The current zoom level,
$IMAGE_NUMBER
The index of the current image,
$IMAGE_COUNT
The total number of images.

The default is `pqiv: $FILENAME ($WIDTHx$HEIGHT) $ZOOM% [$IMAGE_NUMBER/$IMAGE_COUNT]'.

Set the initial zoom level as a floating point value, i.e., 1.0 is 100%. This only applies to the first image, other images are scaled according to the scale mode (see --scale-images-up and --disable-scaling) and window size.
-1, --command-1=COMMAND
Bind the external COMMAND to key 1. You can use 2..9 to bind further commands. The ACTIONS feature (see below) allows one to bind further keys to other commands. COMMAND is executed using the default shell processor. `$1' is substituted with the current file name. Unless COMMAND begins with `|' or `-', if `$1' is not present, the file name is appended to the command line.

If COMMAND begins with `>', its standard output is displayed in a popup window.

If COMMAND begins with `|', the current image is piped to its standard input, and its standard output is loaded as an image. This can be used to e.g. process images.

If COMMAND begins with `-', a list of currently marked images is piped to its standard input.

Execute a specific ACTION when starting pqiv. The syntax is
command(parameter); command(parameter);
See the ACTIONS section below for available commands.
Like --action, but read actions from the standard input. See the ACTIONS section below for syntax and available commands. This option conflicts with --additional-from-stdin.
pqiv normally does not display the main window until one image has been found, and quits when it cannot load any of the images anymore. With this option, both situations result in an empty pqiv window being shown.
Automatically enter montage mode if pqiv is started with more than one image.
pqiv draws a checkerboard as transparent images' background. Use this option to alternatively use a white or black background. Valid values are checkerboard, white and black.
Rebind a key to an action. The syntax is
key sequence { command(parameter); command(parameter); }
A key sequence may be one or more characters, or special characters supplied as `<name>', where name is a GDK key specifier or a mouse button (`Mouse-1') or a scrolling direction (`Mouse-Scroll-1'). If you e.g. use `a<Control>b', then a user must hit `a' followed by control + `b' to trigger the command. It is possible to bind `a' and `ab' as well. The action bound to `a' will then be slightly delayed to allow a user to hit `b'. The semicolon separating commands is optional. See ACTIONS below for available commands.

If you need to know the name of a key specifier, you can run xev and press the desired key. The name of the keysym will be printed in parentheses, preceded by `keysym' and a hexadecimal representation. An alternative is to run xmodmap -pk. The command outputs the symbolic names in parentheses. Or use the list at https://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/plain/gdk/gdkkeysyms.h.

pqiv groups key bindings into different contexts. Currently, montage mode is the only context other than the default one: In montage mode, different key bindings are used. To switch the context while binding key sequences, write

@MONTAGE { ... }
and insert the special key bindings within the curly braces.
Customize the colors used to draw the info box and montage mode borders. Colors can be specified either as a comma separated list of RBG-values in the range from 0 to 255 or as a hexvalue, e.g., #aabbcc. The default value is #000000:#ffff00.
For each command line argument, additionally load all images from the image's directory. pqiv will still start at the image that was given as the first parameter.
Use this option to selectively disable some of pqiv's backends. You can supply a comma separated list of backends here. Non-available backends are silently ignored. Disabling backends you don't want will speed up recursive loading significantly, especially if you disable the archive backend. Available backends are:
generic archive file support
*.cb? comic book archive support
video support, works with ffmpeg as well
images
PDF
PS/EPS
ImageMagick, various formats, e.g. PSD
WebP format
Completely disable scaling. This can be toggled at runtime by pressing t by default. See also --scale-images-up.
If all files have been viewed and the next image is to be viewed, either by the user's request or because a slideshow is active, pqiv by default cycles and restarts at the first image. This parameter can be used to modify this behaviour. Valid choices for ACTION are:
Quit pqiv,
Wait until a new image becomes available. This only makes sense if used with e.g. --watch-directories,
Restart at the first image. In shuffle mode, choose a new random order,
As wrap, but do not reshuffle in random mode.
Tell the window manager to enforce the aspect ratio of the window. If this flag is set, then a compliant window manager will not allow users to resize pqiv's window to a different aspect ratio. This used to be the default behaviour, but window managers tend to have bugs in the code handling forced aspect ratios. If the flag is not set and the aspect ratios of the window and image do not match, then the image will be still be drawn with the correct aspect ratio, with black borders added at the sides.
With --fade, make each fade this long. Floating point values are accepted, e.g. 0.5 makes each fade take half a second.
Try to keep memory usage to a minimum. pqiv by default e.g. preloads the next and previous image to speed up navigation and caches scaled images to speed up redraws. This flag disables such optimizations.
For parameters that are directories, pqiv searches recursively for images. Use this parameter to limit the depth at which pqiv searches. A level of 0 disables recursion completely, i.e. if you call pqiv with a directory as a parameter, it will not search it at all.
Display negatives of images. You can toggle this feature at runtime by pressing n.
Display files in random order. This option conflicts with --sort. Files are reshuffled after all images have been shown, but within one cycle, the order is stable. The reshuffling can be disabled using --end-of-files-action. At runtime, you can use Control + R by default to toggle shuffle mode; this retains the shuffled order, i.e., you can disable shuffle mode, view a few images, then enable it again and continue after the last image you viewed earlier in shuffle mode.
Display the keyboard and mouse bindings and exit. This displays the key bindings in the format accepted by --bind-key. See there, and the ACTIONS section for details on available actions.
Key to use for sorting. Supported values for PROPERTY are:
To sort by filename in natural order, e.g. abc32d before abc112d, but b1 after both,
To sort by file modification date.
Adjust the size of thumbnails in montage mode. The default is 128x128.
Preload COUNT thumbnails adjacent to the current image while displaying images or having them selected in montage mode. This can be used to speed up montage mode, but will lead to high CPU loads.
Persist thumbnails to disk. The simplest way to use this option is to supply a value of yes. Thumbnails are then stored according to the Thumbnail Managing Standard, in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/thumbnails/*. The standard allows storage of thumbnails in sizes 128x128, 256x256, 512x512 and 1024x1024 exclusively, and does not specify how to store thumbnails for files in archives or multi-page documents. Thumbnails violating those constraints will be stored in a special x-pqiv subfolder. Supply standard to store standard compliant thumbnails only. If this option is not used, then thumbnails will not be loaded from the cache either - any thumbnails will be regenerated each time montage mode is used. A value of read-only can be used to load thumbnails, but never store them. read-only is the default.

If you supply local as the argument value, pqiv will store thumbnails in a subfolder named .sh_thumbnails relative to the images as specified by the Thumbnail Managing Standard. Your third option is to provide the name of a directory. pqiv will then use that directory to store thumbnails to. The folder must be given as an absolute path, relative paths do not work. Note that any folder not named .sh_thumbnails will be considered in --watch-directories. Also, note that while pqiv will store thumbnails to another folder, it will still attempt to load them from the standard folders as well.
Workaround for window managers that do not handle resize requests correctly: Instead of resizing, recreate the window whenever the image is changed. This does not redraw images upon changes in zoom alone.
Adjust how much screen space pqiv uses when auto-scaling images outside fullscreen mode. Defaults to 0.8 (80%).
--wait-for-images-to-appear
If no images are found in the directories specified on the command line, instead of exiting, wait for some to appear. This option only works in conjunction with --lazy-load and --watch-directories.
Watch all directories supplied as parameters to pqiv for new files and add them as they appear. In --sort mode, files are sorted into the correct position, else, they are appended to the end of the list. See also --watch-files, which handles how changes to the image that is currently being viewed are handled.
Watch files for changes on disk. Valid choices for VALUE are:
Watch files for changes, reload upon a change, and skip to the next file if a file is removed,
Watch files for changes, reload upon a change, but do nothing if a file is removed,
Do not watch files for changes at all.

Note that a file that has been removed will still be removed from pqiv's image list when it has been unloaded, i.e. if a user moves more than one image away from it. (See also --low-memory.)

ACTIONS

Actions are the building blocks for controlling pqiv. The syntax for entering an action is

COMMAND(PARAMETER)
where COMMAND is one of the commands described in the following and PARAMETER is the command's parameter. Strings are not quoted. Instead, the closing parenthesis must be escaped by a backslash if it is used in a string. E.g., `command(echo \))' will output a single `)'. The available commands are:
Add a file or directory.
Stop an animation, and advance by the given number of frames plus one.
Continue a stopped animation.
Scale the animation's display speed.
Set the animation's display speed scale level to an absolute value. 1.0 is the animation's natural speed.
Override a key binding. Remember to quote closing parenthesis inside the new definition by prepending a backslash. Useful in conjunction with send_keys(STRING) to set up cyclic bindings.
Clear all marks.
Execute the given shell command. The syntax of the argument is the same as for the --command-1 option.
Flip the current image horizontally.
Flip the current image vertically.
Jump to the n'th next or previous directory.
Return to the image that was opened before the current one.
Jump to a file given by its number.
Jump to a file given by its displayed name.
Jump to the n'th next or previous file.
Jump to the n'th next or previous logical directory. Any multi-page documents, such as PDFs or archive files, are regarded as logical directories. Directories within archive files, recognizable by a slash in the archive member's file name, are regarded as directories too. Basically, the rule is that two images are in the same logical directory if no character following the common prefix of their file names in either name is a slash or a hash symbol.
Hardlink the current image to ./.pqiv-select/, or copy it if hardlinking is not possible.
Display the jump dialog.
Enter montage mode, a view for interactive selection of images.
Set up "follow" mode: Bind a sequence composed of the keys in KEYS to each visible thumbnail, such that typing that sequence moves the cursor to said position. At the same time, turn on binding overlays, increase the keyboard timeout, and revert everything after an image has been selected.
Leave montage mode, and goto the currently selected image.
Leave montage mode, and return to the last image viewed before entering montage mode.
Set the horizontal cursor position in montage mode to an absolute value, indexed from 0.
Set the vertical cursor position in montage mode to an absolute value, indexed from 0.
Adjust how wrapping around edges works when shifting the cursor position in montage mode: The default, 1, is to wrap around rows but not around the whole image list. Set this to 0 to disable wrapping entirely. A value of 2 enables full wrapping.
Shift the cursor in montage mode in horizontal direction. Shifts wrap around edges to the adjacent vertical lines, but not around the end of the list back to its beginning.
Shift the cursor in montage mode in vertical direction.
Disable (by using a parameter value of 0) or enable (by using any other value) follow mode. In follow mode, pqiv will draw mnemonics on top of each thumbnail that is reachable by typing a key (combination). Use this to realize keyboard navigation similar to vimperator/pentadactyl/vimium/etc.
Shift the cursor in montage mode in vertical direction by n pages.
Move pqiv's window to the specified coordinates. Negative values center the window on the current monitor.
Do nothing. Can be used to clear an existing binding.
Execute the n'th command defined via --command-1 etc.
Output a list of all loaded files to the standard output.
Quit pqiv.
Reload the current image from disk.
Remove a file given by its number.
Remove a file given by its displayed name.
Reset the scale level to the default value.
Rotate the current image left by 90°.
Rotate the current image right by 90°.
Emulate pressing a sequence of keys. This action currently does not support special keys that do not have an ASCII representation. Useful in conjunction with bind_key(STRING) to set up cyclic key bindings.
Set the visibility of the cursor; 0 disables, other values enable visibility.
Automatically show the cursor when the pointer moves, and hide it after one second of inactivity. Set to 0 to disable this feature or any other value to enable it. Note that this enables pointer movement events, which might slow down pqiv if it is used over slow network links.
Set the duration of fades between images. In contrast to the command line option, this action also implicitly enables fading. Set the duration to zero to disable the feature.
Set the interpolation quality for resized images. Options are: 0 to cycle between the different modes, 1 for an automated choice based on the image size (small images use nearest interpolation, large ones Cairo's `good' mode), 2 for `fast', 3 for `good' and 4 for `best'.
Set the timeout for key sequence input. For example, if you bind something to a and another action to ab, pqiv will give you by default half a second to enter the b before assuming that you intended to type only a. Use this action to change this value.
Set the scale level to the parameter value. 1.0 is 100%. See also --zoom-level.
Adjust the scale level multiplicatively by the parameter value.
Always adjust the scale level such that each image fits the given dimensions.
Adjust how much of the available screen space is used for scaling the window outside fullscreen mode. Defaults to 0.8. This also affects the size of the montage mode window.
Align the image to the window/screen border. Possible parameter values are the cardinal directions, e.g. NE will align the image to the north east, i.e. top right, corner. You can prepend the parameter by an additional C to perform the adjustment only if the image dimensions exceed the available space, and to center the image elsewise.
Set the shift in horizontal direction to a fixed value.
Set the shift in vertical direction to a fixed value.
Set the slideshow interval to the parameter value, in seconds.
Adjust the slideshow interval additively by the parameter value. See also --slideshow-interval.
Set this to non-zero to make pqiv print status information for scripts to stdout, once upon activation and then whenever the user moves between images. The format is compatible with shell variable definitions. Variables currently implemented are CURRENT_FILE_NAME and CURRENT_FILE_INDEX. An output sweep always ends with an empty line.
Change the amount of thumbnails to be preloaded. A value of zero disables the feature.
Change the size of thumbnails. The order of the arguments is width, then height. Thumbnails are always scaled such that no side is larger than this limit.
Shift the current image in x direction.
Shift the current image in y direction.
Toggle between the different background patterns: 0 to toggle, 1 for checkerboard pattern, 2 for black, 3 for white.
Toggle fullscreen mode: 0 to toggle, 1 to go to fullscreen, 2 to return to window mode.
Toggle the visibility of the info box.
Toggle the current image's mark.
Toggle negate (color inversion) mode: 0 to toggle, 1 to enable, 2 to disable.
Change the scale mode: Use 1 to disable scaling, 2 for automated scaledown (default), 3 to always scale images up, 4 to maintain the user-set zoom level, and 5 to maintain the window's size. 0 cycles through modes 1-3.
Toggle shuffle mode. Use 0 to cycle through the possible values, 1 to enable shuffle, and any other value to disable it.
Toggle slideshow mode.

DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS

Previous/Next file.
Link the current image to ./.pqiv-select/, or copy it if hardlinking is not possible.
Toggle fullscreen mode.
Flip the image horizontally or vertically.
Rotate the image right or left.
Toggle visibility of the info box.
Show a dialog with a list of all files for quick selection.
Toggle montage mode, an interactive image selection mode. Use cursor keys or your mouse to select an image and Return to return to single image view. Use g to quickly navigate to a thumbnail.
Toggle a mark on an image. Use ctrl-R to reset all marks. Used in conjunction with commands starting with a -.
Quit pqiv
Reload the current image.
Toggle slideshow mode.
Toggle the scale mode; cycle between scaling all images up, scaling large images down and no scaling at all.
Maintain user-set scale level.
Maintain the window's size.
Zoom.
Stop, single-step and continue animated images.
Alter animation speed.
Toggle shuffle mode.
Go to the image viewed before the current one.
Go to the next/previous logical directory.
Alter slideshow interval.
Toggle background pattern for transparent images.
Toggle negate ("negative") mode.
Goto the next and previous files.
Move the image.
Zoom.
Move the image.

This list omitted some advanced default bindings. The descriptions of the actions above is annotated with those bindings. You can also run `pqiv --show-bindings' to display a complete list.

CONFIGURATION FILE

Upon startup, pqiv parses the file ~/.config/pqivrc. It should be a INI-style key/value file with an options section. All long form parameters are valid keys. To set a boolean flag, set the value to 1. A set flag inverts the meaning of the associated parameter. E.g., if you set `fullscreen=1', then pqiv will start in fullscreen mode unless you supply -f upon startup.

As an example,

[options]
fullscreen=1
sort=1
command-1=|convert - -blur 20 -
will make pqiv start in fullscreen by default, sort the file list and bind a blur filter to key 1. The -f flag on the command line will make pqiv not start in fullscreen, and -n will make it not sort the list.

You can place key bindings in the format of the --bind-key parameter in a special [keybindings] section. E.g.,

[keybindings]
q { goto_file_relative(-1); }
w { goto_file_relative(1); }
x { send_keys(#1); }
<numbersign>1 { set_scale_level_absolute(1.); bind_key(x { send_keys(#2\); }); }
<numbersign>2 { set_scale_level_absolute(.5); bind_key(x { send_keys(#3\); }); }
<numbersign>3 { set_scale_level_absolute(0.25); bind_key(x { send_keys(#1\); }); }
will remap q and w to move between images, and set up x to cycle through 100%, 50% and 25% zoom levels.

Similarly, you can also specify (multiple) actions to be executed each time pqiv is started in a section called [actions].

For backwards compatibility with old versions of pqiv, if the file does not start with a section definition, the first line will be parsed as command line parameters.

You may place comments into the file by beginning a line with `;' or `#'. Comments at the end of a line are not supported.

Other supported paths for the configuration file are ~/.pqivrc, /etc/xdg/pqivrc and /etc/pqivrc. pqiv will use whichever file it finds first. You can use the environment variable PQIVRC_PATH to override the configuration file.

EXAMPLES

Rebinds a to go back to the first image, c to store the path to the current image to the clipboard using xclip and loads all files from the foo folder and bar.pdf, sorted.
Load all files from the test folder in a slideshow progressing very fast, and in the end wait until new files become available. This effectively displays new images as they appear in a directory and is useful e.g. if you output images from a script that you later intent to combine into a movie and wish to monitor progress.
Set up a slideshow that displays all images from the test folder such that it is possible to remove all images from the directory and place new ones into it afterwards without pqiv exiting.
Output a list of all files from the test folder that pqiv can handle and quit.

BUGS

Please report any bugs on github, on https://github.com/phillipberndt/pqiv

AUTHOR

Phillip Berndt (phillip dot berndt at googlemail dot com)

March 2024 2.13.1