1.5.0 beta 4 - Closing an animation (PNG/GIF/JXL/WEBP) requires not a single, but a double press of ESC

[adrem85]

I noticed a small problem with animation - when viewing animated images is completed - when pressing ESC once, instead of closing the file, the program shows a "frozen frame" (i.e., instead of exiting, it pauses the animation). And only if you press ESC again, the view closes. If this is not a bug, then it is not entirely clear why this was done?

This does not happen with conventional formats, they have just pressing ESC is enough. In other viewers, such a problem is also not observed, a single press of ESC is enough there.

Observed in all versions. Windows 11.

[user0]

yeah, maybe its better to assign P to "Start/Stop animation" instead of ESC for Stop only

[xnview]

ESC stops animation

[user0]

ESC stops animation

Why?

- ESC is default closing action, not stopping
- Exit Viewer is much more common action than Stop animation
- what is the reason to stop animation at the first place? If you need to go through frames, you can do it without stopping.
- why ESC does not stop video playbck in Viewer, but exits instead (consistancy issue)?

the solution
- do not stop animation on ESC press, just exit Viewer
- assign default shortcut to "Start/Stop animation", eg P
- the same "Start/Stop animation" shall work in video files as well (can be renamed to "Start/Stop playback" to better match both cases)

[xnview]

it was always like that, even in Classic

[user0]

maybe its time to change as there is no justification (other than legacy) for current behaviour

[adrem85]

maybe its time to change

I agree with this opinion.

I'll give you an example of how it looks in practice. When viewing 20 GIFs from the file manager, I rarely need to use a pause (and if I do, it's more convenient to do it through frame viewing so that I can immediately switch to the next/previous frame). But I need to use ESC to close the file 20 times. And each time you have to press twice and spend time first stopping the animation, and only then on the main function...

[user0]

the issue is a bit deeper, as current .gif behaviour does not correlate with
"Pressing Esc once quits XnViewMP - Always" settings, that either poorly named or works incorrectly

[xnview]

perhaps as an option...

[user0]

imho, no any extra option required as it will introduce more issues, eg with "Pressing Esc once quits XnViewMP" setting.

Just:

• remove Esc from "stop animation" action
  it will make behaviour same as in other apps that closes animated gifs via single Esc (acdsee,irfanview,faststone)

• assign some key to existing "Start/Stop animation" action, eg P (Play/Pause)

• let "Start/Stop animation" action affect video files

[adrem85]

perhaps as an option...

The final decision is yours, so if it's an option, I don't mind either. It's better than nothing.

[xnview]

Thanks to your detailed description I can reproduce the problem.