Window-Dumps for explaining the Basics

Yes, window-dumps, not screenshots. You don't need to take screenshots of the current window of plio, you can just press the d key and a window-dump will be saved to a png file. This works in Dirs--View, Index-View and Image-View.

Let's now together look at how plio looks like and how to handle it. It's assumed here, that you already can start plio with directory arguments from the command line.

Dirs-View

Initially all accepted directories (at least one file with image-file-extension must be contained) will be represented by a thumbnail (of the first image of a directory in name sorted order), and you see the thumbs of the directories that have been accepted by plio presented as a 2D-array like this:

sirsview buttersafe

The (追記) number of directories (追記ここまで) is shown above the thumbnail array. The green rectangle is the cursor.

The (追記) name of the directory (追記ここまで), which is highlighted by the cursor, as well as the (追記) number of files (追記ここまで) (or if the directory has been read, the number of readable images) that are contained in that directory, are displayed below the thumbnail array.

You can move the cursor with the cursor keys or with vim-like keys to other directories:

dirsview oglaf

moved to the last position:

dirsview xkcd

Index-View

We moved the cursor back to the first position (index 0) and pressed Enter. As soon as the Enter key has been pressed, plio enters the directory that was highlighted with the cursor.

The images of that directory will then be read and their thumbnails presented:

indexview of buttersafe-comics, 14 of 21 images read already

As you can see, 14 images out of 21 files have aleady been read at the time the window-dump has been created. When all images could be read and decompressed, the number of images equals the number of files, as you can be seen in the next window dump.

indexview of buttersafe-comics, all 21 images have been read

If there were files with image file extension, which could not be read and decompressed as an image, the number of images would be less than the number of files.

In the Index-View (which shows the images of one directory as thumbnails) you can move around with the same keys as were used in the Dirs-View.

Here we moved to position 11: indexview buttersafe-comics at pos.idx 11

With the q key you can go back upwards to the Dirs-View, select another directory and then look inside it:

indexview of pbf-comids, index 0

Pressing Enter while you are in the Index-View would open the image under the cursor (Image-View). Pressing Enter again would lead you back to the Index-View.

With the q key you would go back upwards to the Dirs-View (from the Index-View as well as from the Image-View).

Index-View, with images sorted by ...

We now show some of the sorting possibilities.

We are again in the first directory and have set the cursor back at position 0. (The position of the cursor does not matter for sorting; it has been mentioned here, because when you leave a directory, plio remembers, at which position the cursor has been, when visited the last time. This may be confusing at the beginning, but quite convenient, when you have been accustomed to it.)

The default sorting is sort-by-name: sorted by name

You can sort by width with Ctrl-w: sorted by width

You can sort by height with Ctrl-h: sorted by height

You can sort by size (width x height) with Ctrl-s: sorted by size

If you wish to sort by aspect ratio, use Ctrl-a: sorted by aspect ratio

When you want to go back to sort-by-name press Ctrl-n:

image shows selected Dir sorted by name

Image-View

As mentioned above, you can go to the Image-View, when pressing Enter while you are in the Index-View. As the name suggests, the Image-View shows you an image - the one that the cursor has highlighted.

Pressing Enter again brings you back to the Index-View. Pressing q brings you up to the Dirs-View.

Currently (2023年05月12日), the Image-View of plio only supports "fit to window". Scaling the image might be added later.

You can use the same keys that were used to navigate in the Dirs-View and the Index-View to also navigate in the Image-View. But by doing so you don't navigate inside the image - you navigate in the Index (that from the Index-View) while you look at images in the Image-View. That means you can move to the next image to the left or the right while looking at the images. But you can also move to the next image below or above.

This allows skimming through the images without the need to go to the Index-View first (with the Enter key), then move the cursor in the Index-View, and the open an image (again with the Enter key) in the Image-View.

Instead you just move to the adjacent image (left, right, above, below) directly. (Of course, when you want to select not the next adjacent image but an arbitrarily image, you need to go to the Index-View and select the image there.)

Moving to the adjacent left or right image is, what you surely know from other image viewers.

But moving vertical through the image array allows you to skim fast through a lot of images - similar to taking samples. If the plio window shows an image array of say 10 x 15 images, moving vertical would show you every 10th image.

Reversing the Sorting-Order (Ascending vs. Descending)

All of the above mentioned sorting functionality does sort in ascending order. To get descending order, first sort as mentioned above, then use Ctrl-r to reverse the order of the arrays.

This reversing is implemented for Dirs-View as well as Index-View.