Apple @lemmy.world ImaginaryFox @kbin.social 1y ago

Any replacement recommendation for the default image preview within Finder?

What I want to be able to do is open any folder and double click the image and navigate to the next image with arrows. Without having to view that folder through a separate gallery program.

But instead what happens is I double click and arrows do nothing and stays on the opened Pic. So what I have to do instead is select the Pic and press space. Then I can navigate from left to right. But, then it doesn't automatically move to the next row, so I have to press down to go down to the next row then move from right to left then down then left to right. Or change from my preferred grid view to list view so I can just rely on a single key press or change to multicolumn view which I'm not a fan of . Having to do those extra steps feels so clunky.

Is there a way to change the behavior of the default preview so double clicking to open a picture in a folder leads to being able to just use arrows to move to the next image in the folder? I'll even accept hitting space and the image preview automatically moving to the next row. Or another program to replace it that is a better image preview?

20 comments

If I have understood your question correctly: First, in the Finder, if you view by list instead of icon, you can then use the up/down arrow keys in the Quick Look to navigate backwards/forwards through the images. Second, you can also use the Preview or Gallery mode (I forget what it is exactly called) in the Finder on image directories to quickly create fast scrolling gallery views of image directories.
- Pixea ended up being the solution. Let's me not have to do any of those additional steps. Simple open and navigate to next image with arrows.
Spacebar
- Yep. Hit space bar and use quick look.
  
  So what I have to do instead is select the Pic and press space. Then I can navigate from left to right. But, then it doesn't automatically move to the next row, so I have to press down to go down to the next row then move from right to left then down then left to right. Or change from my preferred grid view to list view so I can just rely on a single key press or change to multicolumn view which I'm not a fan of . Having to do those extra steps feels so clunky.
  
  Edit: got Pixea from recs and it works perfectly. Have replaced that to open jpg and pngs.
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/pixea/id1507782672?mt=12
- This is perfect. Simple and does exactly what I wanted.
Try Pixea! It does exactly what you ask. Pixea link
- Thank you. Simple and just works. I wonder why it doesn't work that way natively.
Sadly, there’s an excellent image viewer, that’s free, does exactly what you’re looking for, has been around since the 90’s, has a great support community, but it’s Windows only.

If you wanna try it in WINE, the name of the prog is IrfanView (after the coder’s name).
- I ended up getting pixea from the recommendations which has been perfect.
  
  Awesome! I’ll have to look into it, nothing’s come close to IrfanView on the Mac side previously.
I've never heard of such a thing. It would be like a combination file explorer and image viewer. Perhaps you could build it yourself, I don’t think it would be too difficult.
- Basically I just wish when you hit space while the folder is it grid view it would automatically move to the next image in the sequence instead of stopping at the row it is in.
  
  Having to do steps like change to list view to use up and down arrows to go to the next image in the sequence or columns just seems unnecessary and more conplicated that it needs to be.
  
  Edit: Tried pixea from recommendations and set that to open jpg and pngs by default. It's been perfect.

20 comments