Riffle
Riffle Version 1.0

A little image viewer application

© Julian Smart, Anthemion Software Ltd.

Contents

Welcome to Riffle

Welcome to Riffle, a simple image browser application. Riffle lets you:

  • browse directories of images;
  • view images;
  • copy images to the clipboard.

Riffle is available on Windows, Linux and MacOS X.

Riffle and wxWidgets

This application is supplied for demonstration purposes, on the CD-ROM accompanying the book Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets CD-ROM.

wxWidgets techniques demonstrated by Riffle include:

  • Menu bar and toolbar usage.
  • Sizer-based layout (using DialogBlocks).
  • The wxPropertySheetDialog settings dialog.
  • Use of wxSplitterWindow, wxGenericDirCtrl and wxThumbnailCtrl.
  • Image loading, scaling and drawing.
  • Use of wxUpdateUIEvent.
  • Idle-time processing, checking for a screen orientation change under Pocket PC.
  • Use of wxConfig and a custom validator class, wxConfigValidator.
  • Creation of installations suitable for each supported platform.
  • Use of online help in Windows HTML Help, wxWidgets HTML Help and Windows CE Help format (using Anthemion HelpBlocks).

Credits

Design and coding by Julian Smart

Thanks to all the talented contributors at www.wxwidgets.org
 

Installation

On Windows:

Please run the installation program. This will create a program group called Anthemion Riffle x.y (or other name if you have chosen a different name). This folder can be accessed via the Start menu under Programs. The folder contains shortcuts to the program, help file, and Uninstall program.

You can uninstall Riffle either by double-clicking the Uninstall Riffle icon in the Riffle group, or by invoking the Windows Control Panel, double-clicking on Add/Remove Programs, and then choosing the Anthemion Riffle item.

On Linux:

Unarchive Riffle-x.yz-i386.tar.gz to a suitable location in your filesystem. A directory of the form Riffle-x.yz (where x.yz is the version number) will be created.

Add the location to your PATH and run the application with 'riffle'. You may wish to set the environment variable RIFFLEDIR so that Riffle can find its data files.

For example:

  % cd ~
  % tar xvfz Riffle-1.01.tar.gz
  % export RIFFLEDIR=`pwd`/Riffle-1.0
  % export PATH=$PATH:$RIFFLEDIR
  % riffle
If you don't want to change your PATH, you could place a script in a location already on your PATH, such as /usr/local/bin. For example:

  #!/bin/sh
  # Invokes Riffle
  export RIFFLEDIR=/home/mydir/Riffle-1.0
  $RIFFLEDIR/riffle $*

On Mac OS X:

Download Riffle-x.yz.dmg and click to unarchive the disk image. Copy the folder to a suitable location on your hard disk, and run the Riffle application contained in the folder. To uninstall, simple drag the folder to the trash can.

Release notes

Riffle License Agreement

Riffle is licensed under the wxWindows Licence. Please see wxWidgets.org for details.

Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Julian Smart. All rights reserved.

What's New?

Version 1.0, April 12th 2005

  • Initial release.

Riffle user interface

Please click on a topic below to learn about the individual Riffle windows.

Menubar

The menubar allows you to perform many functions such as loading and saving files, creating new projects and dialogs, undo/redo, invoking help, and so on. Try to remember the keyboard shortcuts that are displayed next to the menu item labels - they can save you a lot of time and make your Riffle experience more natural and enjoyable.

Main toolbar

The main toolbar gives quick access to commonly-used commands. If you hold your mouse pointer over the toolbar buttons, a tooltip pops up with a short description of the button's function. You can choose to hide the toolbar altogether using the View | Show Main Toolbar menu command.

You can find out more about in the main toolbar commands topic.

Directory browser

The directory browser shows you the folders on your computer. Double-click on a folder to expand the folder, or click on the plus button. Images in folders will be displayed in the thumbnail browser on the right.

Thumbnail browser

The thumbnail browser shows the images in the selected folder. You can scroll through the thumbnails; clicking on an image shows it in the image viewer (replacing the thumbnail window).

Image viewer

The image viewer shows an image you clicked on in the thumbnail browser. You can zoom in and out, fit the image to the window, or show at full size using the toolbar buttons.

Using menubar commands

This topic describes the function of the menubar commands.

File | Edit | View | Help

File menu

Exit (Alt+F4) Quits the application.

Edit menu

Copy (Ctrl+C) Copies the viewed image to the clipboard.

View menu

Show Thumbnails (Ctrl+T) Shows the thumbnails browser.

Zoom In (+) Increases the zoom level on the selected image.
Zoom Out (-) Decreases the zoom level on the selected image.
Actual Size (Ctrl+S) Shows the image at actual size.
Fit Window (Ctrl+F) Fits the image to the size of the image browser window.

Settings... (Ctrl+P) Displays the Settings dialog, which allows editing of a variety of preferences. See Settings Dialog.

Help menu

Help Contents Shows the online help contents.
What's This? After selecting this command, click on a Riffle window to view a short tip describing its function.

About Shows an About box giving version and build information.

Using toolbar commands

Zoom In Increases the scale on the currently viewed image.
Zoom Out Decreases the scale on the currently viewed image.
Fit Window Fits the image to the image viewer window.
Actual Size Shows the image at its actual size.
Show Thumbnails Shows the thumbnail browser.
Copy Copies the current image to the clipboard.

Using dialogs

The next sections describe the dialogs used in Riffle.

Settings dialog

Currently there is only one page in the settings dialog, the General Settings page.

General settings

The general settings dialog allows you to change various global preferences.

Remember last directory Check to show the last-browsed directory when Riffle loads.
Zoom by The percentage that the image zooms every time you click the + or - buttons.
Thumbnail size The size in pixels of the thumbnails.

Using keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to speed up your work. Look for them when you use menu commands, and try to remember them for next time you use the commands.

These are the shortcuts for navigating the Riffle user interface.

Ctrl+C Copies the currently viewed image to the clipboard.
Ctrl+F Fits the image to the image viewer window.
Ctrl+P Shows the Settings dialog.
Ctrl+S Shows the image at its actual size.
Ctrl+T Shows the thumbnails browser.
+ Zooms in.
- Zooms out.
Alt+F4 Quits Riffle.