Best picture viewer file management app

I switched to macbook in 2015 but recently bought a laptop with win11 on it and all the native picture viewers are not useful. I have a program acdsee I bought in 1995 back when I was using windows 3.11. It still works but not well since it was written 30 years ago. Still far better than anything I have been able to download. I tried downloading about 4 different programs and they were all a joke.

I need a simple picture viewer that can browse files and view, copy move all in one package. Nothing I have ever used did it as effectively as acdsee. It switches from browser mode to viewer mode so you get the best of both worlds and has keyboard shortcuts multiple ways to do the same thing, simple features like copy, move, delete, zoom, rotate, crop, rename series, save, batch convert files.

At this point I would be happy to find a simple program that does the very basic tasks, view images and copy and move them. What do people now days use to manage their picture files move copy delete etc.?

Thanks
Robert

if you're looking for something like the spacebar peek on macos, you can implement the same feature on windows with this app that runs in the tray:

.https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook

and you can allow peek for microsoft office documents (word, excel) with this plugin too:

.https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook.Plugin.OfficeViewer

just download the plugin after having quicklook running, highlight it and press spacebar. quicklook will install the plugin and then you can delete that plugin file

Thanks, I got quicklook at the msft store, wasn't sure what to do with the developers link you sent me to but the quicklook function was a big help. I did look up acdsee and they are still in business. Last time I checked they wanted a lot of money for a product that was just too overdone for me. But this time I downloaded a free product that looks pretty decent. It seems to have kept some of the core features that made it such a great program. Still haven't figured out why it's free because it looks pretty elaborate. I am guessing they will be hitting me up for money at some point which will probably be ok if it works well.
Robert

antares4141 said:

and all the native picture viewers are not useful.

Click to expand...

That's putting it mildly!! And very politely, I must say. Your restraint to stronger language is admirable

Irfanview (freeware) .. ain't much you can't do to/with an image in Irfanview. Also includes a thumbnail viewer

"That's putting it mildly!! And very politely"
It did take a lot of restraint! MSFT has done a lot of things that just make no sense. Like windows explorer interface left tree pane no longer follows what you are doing in the right pane. That is in the past if you double clicked on a folder in the right pane it would open up the tree in the left pane so you always knew where you were in the file tree. Apparently not anymore. You have to navigate on the left pane to get the tree to expand out which is extremely annoying! They got rid of the traditional types of menus and it doesn't seem to be an improvement at all. The text to speech is a joke. IF you want to have it continue reading you can't do any multitasking you have to sit there and look at the computer. If you scroll your screen it will scroll it back to where the text is it is being read. All extremely annoying! Totally useless I have to be really desperate before I have msft read anything to me. I am hoping to find a third party app that isn't too crazy expensive that simply reads to you without all the other baggage. The touchpad doesn't scroll pages worth a dam. Macbook you just flick it and it coasts afterwards very intuitive. MSFT you push it let up and it stops, than you have to push again let up it stops etc. etc. a lot more labor intensive I feel like I am being raped every time I use it.

By the way how did you quote my text above?

Thanks Robert

antares4141 said:

By the way how did you quote my text above?

Thanks Robert

Click to expand...

Quote button in bottom right of response.

Reader - yeah you’ll be better off with a 3rd party app

Touchpad - Settings (Win+I) > Bluetooth & devices > Touchpad > scroll and zoom

Also - may want to keep language in check on this forum

antares4141 said:

At this point I would be happy to find a simple program that does the very basic tasks, view images and copy and move them. What do people now days use to manage their picture files move copy delete etc.?

Thanks
Robert

Click to expand...

I have been using Irfanview for ages to manage my pictures.

dacrone said:

Quote button in bottom right of response.

Reader - yeah you’ll be better off with a 3rd party app

Touchpad - Settings (Win+I) > Bluetooth & devices > Touchpad > scroll and zoom

Also - may want to keep language in check on this forum

Click to expand...

Any suggestions for text to speech reader? I think I did try a few times with settings for touch pad. Part of the problem might be it behaves differently on different apps. It can be ridiculously sensitive on some apps and reasonable on others. Main gripe is the way it makes you drag and drop, drag and drop drag and drop where mac you flick it lightly it moves lightly flic it hard and it moves fast and slowly glides to a stop. Also different laptops are going to behave differently but my laptop wasn't cheap so not sure that should be a problem. It would be interesting to try a dell or some other high end laptop and see if the same problem occurs there. Dually noted on the language.
Thanks Robert

antares4141 said:

Any suggestions for text to speech reader? I think I did try a few times with settings for touch pad. Part of the problem might be it behaves differently on different apps. It can be ridiculously sensitive on some apps and reasonable on others. Main gripe is the way it makes you drag and drop, drag and drop drag and drop where mac you flick it lightly it moves lightly flic it hard and it moves fast and slowly glides to a stop. Also different laptops are going to behave differently but my laptop wasn't cheap so not sure that should be a problem. It would be interesting to try a dell or some other high end laptop and see if the same problem occurs there. Dually noted on the language.
Thanks Robert

Click to expand...

what touchpad drivers do you have (synaptics, etc)? i'm sure theres a registry mod that can be made to modify scroll speeds for 2 or 3 finger gestures

as for a reader, i dont as i dont use any. im sure someone here can recommend a good one though

EDIT:
@antares4141
this will allow you to have text from one program read allowed while doing other tasks:
Credit: .https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=124878
run attached (i compiled that ahk into an exe), when window opens, paste text to read aloud or on source page, highlight text to read and press Alt+Y to begin reading aloud

imo, XnView MP is the closest alternative to classic ACDsee, and probably the best image viewer on windows.
alts are FastStone... or Irfanview if you are into outdated UI.
More modern approach is ImageGlass.

dacrone said:

what touchpad drivers do you have (synaptics, etc)? i'm sure theres a registry mod that can be made to modify scroll speeds for 2 or 3 finger gestures

Click to expand...

control panel/mice and other pointing devices/hid-compliant mouse driver is msft
Thinking I need to go to acer forum on this one just have to find the time.

On apple if you flick hard with two fingers it's like pushing a toy car hard, it will gradually cost from there to a stop. On windows you flick hard and it slows the car down to almost a stop then glides to a stop from there. Very annoying. And it is different in different apps. For instance some apps you can use it but others it is so sensitive you may as well just go over to the scroll bar and drag that.
Thanks

FDretired said:

I have been using Irfanview for ages to manage my pictures.

Click to expand...

Certainly better than what came with win11! On a laptop infraview tool bar icons are really small as are the dialogue boxes. I don't think that can be changed without going into settings and universally changing everything else. I am spoiled with acdsee's browser mode for navigating files and folders. Will try to get accustomed to it.
Thanks!

xxxxx451 said:

imo, XnView MP is the closest alternative to classic ACDsee, and probably the best image viewer on windows.
alts are FastStone... or Irfanview if you are into outdated UI.
More modern approach is ImageGlass.

Click to expand...

Thanks, downloaded installer for xnview from their website, prefer msft store. Checked it at virustotal.com. Always weary even if it comes back clean so haven't installed yet but plan to. Thanks again

FastStoneViewer and XnViewMP - are indeed good alternative for classic ACDSee (the modern version is a bit heavy for an imagine viewer - if i recall, it even needs an account to be able to use it).

Personally, i used IrfanView for quite a long time (as a basic/simple image viewer) - but this days - it's starting to lag behind. The best thing about it (low resources impact) - is starting to be a con in terms of performance. Even the interface feels outdated (compared to other image viewers), especially their attempt at a dark theme. Also, lacks some basic features - like assigning hotkeys. Again, this was my main image viewer for more than 15 years - but this days - was looking for something different (still simple, but more brushed for modern days).

FastStoneViewer and XnViewMP - are actively updated - but their old school take (classic ACDSee style) - doesn't do it for me. Couple of years - bumped into nomacs - keeping an eye on the prereleases -but it's not there yet. And even more recently bumped into - gimgv - where again was/am keeping an eye on the prereleases - but this might actually be it. All it took was - changing some auto-keys to my liking and trying/checking some of its settings - and now i'm trying it out as the main image viewer. Here's a quick video - showing what i meant by that (modern , fast - yet simple/basic image viewer).

(the video was compressed - while uploaded - so there's a loss in image/video quality - as expected)

In case above streaming - is not loading fast enough: