eim-peep-dired

A modified version of peep-dired optimized for viewing images.

Overview

This is an alternative to peep-dired that modifies the original package in the following ways:

1. It uses the Emacs Image Manipulation Package to automatically re-size images to fit the peep-dired window when peep-dired mode is enabled or on invoking peep-dired-snext-file or peep-dired-sprev-file.

2. It marks image buffers as unmodified so that the user is not prompted to save the changes caused by the re-sizing operation.

3. It kills peeped buffers on invoking peep-dired-snext-file or peep-dired-sprev-file. This means peep-dired acts like a typical photo viewer application (rather than opening new files in separate windows) and keeps the buffer list clean.

4. Several of the original key-bindings are altered.

eim-peep-dired contains all of the original peep-dired functions and can be used with other file types besides images.

Requirements

1. ImageMagick: http://www.imagemagick.org

2. Emacs Image Manipulation Package: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsImageManipulation
   See the 'talk' page for configuration help.

Installation

Download eim-peep-dired.el and use 'M-x package-install-file' after installing the above requirements.

Configuration

(use-package eim-peep-dired
  :ensure t
  :defer t ; don't access `dired-mode-map' until `eim-peep-dired' is loaded
  :bind (:map dired-mode-map
              ("," . eim-peep-dired)
  :config
  (setq eim-peep-dired-cleanup-eagerly nil) 
  (setq eim-peep-dired-cleanup-on-disable t)))

Usage

When in a dired buffer, press "," to turn on eim-peep-dired and view the file at point in a separate window. The package automatically fits the image to the window. C-n/C-p move to the next and previous entries in the dired buffer. When moving to a new entry, the previous peep preview buffer is killed. If you prefer to compare files in separate windows at the same time, use M-n/M-p instead of C-n/C-p.

Commands

,       Enable eim-peep-dired from a dired buffer
C-n     View the next file in the same peep window
C-p     View the previous file in the same peep window
M-n     View the next file in a separate peep window
M-p     View the previous file in a separate peep window
SPC     Scroll the peeped buffer down
C-SPC   Scroll the peeped buffer up

Limitations

1. The re-sizing operation relies on the mogrify function provided by ImageMagick. This runs slowly for larger images. For this reason, the operation that marks the buffer as unmodified can sometimes finish before the re-sizing operation finishes. In this instance, the user will be asked whether or not to save the changes to the image when disabling eim-peep-dired. If you plan to work with many large images, you can modify the timer settings in the source file. The default is 0.250 sec.

Acknowledgement

Thank you to @asok for the original peep-dired, one of my favorite emacs packages.