FastStone Image Viewer and Linux Mint

[br1anstorm]

I shed few tears when I left Windows behind and moved to Linux Mint as my main OS. But I set up dual boot, and still have Win7 on my laptop, just because there are one or two programs designed for Windows that I really like and am very accustomed to,and where I haven't yet fully been persuaded of the merits of the Linux alternatives.

One of these is FastStone Image Viewer. It is freeware, and the image viewing, editing and organising program that - for me - is head and shoulders above all others. Zoner is the only other one I have used which runs it close. GIMP is too elaborate and user-unfriendly (unless you are a real tech fanatic). Picasa too intrusive (and I'm not a great fan of Google apps). I simply haven't got used to the most common Linux alternatives: Shotwell is pretty good. Ristretto and GThumb just image viewers. DigiKam is perhaps the closest rival to FastStone but is evidently designed for the KDE desktop.

All of which is just background, because (as someone is bound to say!) it is possible to run FastStone in Linux Mint by using Wine. So that's what I am doing. I notice that there are one or two other posts in the forum - in this thread http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... e#p1097033 for example - from people who like FastStone.

I just thought I should post - for others who might want to continue to use FastStone - one tip. The program runs well under Wine apart from one little glitch. When displaying the thumbnails of images in a folder, it only shows the first 43 (don't ask how or why) in the right-hand panel. I recently came across the solution, or workaround. I pass it on for the benefit of anyone else interested.

After installing FastStone Image Viewer (the latest version is 5.5) using Wine, you need also to install "winetricks" which is available via the Mint software manager.

Open winetricks, and choose "select the default wine prefix". Then in the next window select "install a Windows DLL or component". And in the next screen, choose "comctl32" and hit OK.

Job done. FastStone will now display all the thumbnails of however many images you have in a folder.

In my experience so far, all the other features of FastStone Image Viewer (and users of the program will know what I am talking about) work seamlessly under Wine in Linux Mint.

[Quetzal]

Thanks for that info, I'll make a note of it for future use.

I'm also trying to ease into Linux Mint but a bit nervous about dumping Windows from my dual-boot setup.
I do use FastStone Image Viewer in Windows, but usually only to straighten up images from my scanner.

I also like FastStone Capture for screenshots as you can use the auto-scroll facility to capture hugely long web pages - though I did pay for that one.

Haven't got around to trying either via Wine yet though.

[Cosmo.]

You can do screen shots of long web pages with Linx-software shutter.

[marlenejo]

I use Fastone viewer in Windows too. It's an excellent program. I use it with wine on MInt for a while. However I discover XnViewMP which ressemble Fastone very much. I only use that now.

[DrHu]

F-Spot has been around for a long time
https://help.gnome.org/users/f-spot/uns ... ex.html.en
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080 ... -Spot.html

• F-Spot is a full-featured personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop.
• F-Spot simplifies digital photography by providing intuitive tools to help you share, touch-up, find and organize your images. At the time same, it also includes some advanced features such as tagging images.
• It is designed to cope with large collections of photos.

OK, I had a look
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimed ... 3287.shtml
--doesn't seem to offer any editing (cropping etc),, only save/convert --possibly view/manage photos

• Hard to teel from the description, since it is mostly advertorials

[Joss]

However I discover XnViewMP which ressemble Fastone very much. I only use that now.

I second that, XnViewMP is very easy to install on Linux with its .deb file and it's on a par with FastStone, even more configurable.

[br1anstorm]

Thanks to all those who have responded with comments and suggestions. I wasn't really aiming to launch a debate about "the best photo organising/editing program for Linux", just to provide a little help for the FastStone fans.

But the recommendations to look at XnViewMP and F-Spot are very welcome. I had looked briefly at XNViewMP before, and it seems pretty good. F-Spot is a new one to me, but the website suggests that it will also do most of the usual tasks.

I guess in the end it's the devil-you-know versus the devil-you-don't. I have found that some programs are good at organising but offer limited editing capability, while others offer lots of editing options but are rubbish as organisers! FastStone Image Viewer is just so versatile, so user-friendly, and so good at every aspect of image-management that I find it hard to contemplate abandoning it.

Who knows, maybe as I get more settled into the Linux world I will end up with one of these others. We'll see.....

[flyingrhino]

you can do screen shots of long web pages with Linx-software shutter.

Are you sure about that? I'm running shutter since this is the closest native linux software to faststone capture (which I paid for on my windows laptop), but I can't find where shutter does the long page scrolling

And definitely +1 on xmviewMP. I'm using that one too as it is the closest to Faststone viewer which I also use on my windows laptop

Thanks

[Cosmo.]

Yes, I am sure. Check, if the package gnome-web-photo is installed.

[flyingrhino]

Yes, I am sure. Check, if the package gnome-web-photo is installed.

Dude, you're the man !
I didn't know about this at all , after adding the package shutter does indeed capture webpages, well at least some of them.

For example , this page captures ok:
https://serverfault.com/questions/17851 ... inux-mdadm
Albeit with the ads (that I am blocking in Vivaldi with adguard)

but this one doesn't (this very topic we're discussing right here)
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=216813
It comes up with some error message in the screenshot below (which I had to take with another screenshot program because shutter does not let me copy the error text neither do a screenshot of itself)

Screenshot_2016-03-08_21-36-58.png

Conclusion - no scrolling screenshot software for linux that works (and I'm even happy to pay for one just the same as I paid for faststone capture
)

[Cosmo.]

I confirm that it does not work for this forum. Perhaps because of the Sucuri firewall which the forum uses? I don't know.

Can you do this with faststone?

[flyingrhino]

I confirm that it does not work for this forum. Perhaps because of the Sucuri firewall which the forum uses? I don't know.
Can you do this with faststone?

I confirm that Faststone capture on WINDOWS 8.1 with vivaldi beta 3 / opera 35 captures this forum properly.
But this is FS on its native OS ; I'm not running FS under wine . My policy is to keep LM uncontaminated and windows stuff can run in a VM or on my laptop
Also FS capture doesn't read the web page and construct an image - it does a series of stills by scrolling the page and stitching them all together

[Cosmo.]

Also FS capture doesn't read the web page and construct an image - it does a series of stills by scrolling the page and stitching them all together

Yes, I know this. And I assume, that this makes the difference: FS uses the browser as backend, Shutter uses gnome-web-photo and I suspect, that Sucuri doesn't like that. If I try to capture the Sucuri-Website I also cannot do this.

You can do me a favor and try to capture the Sucuri page with FS. If my suspicion is right FS should be able to do this.

[flyingrhino]

You can do me a favor and try to capture the Sucuri page with FS. If my suspicion is right FS should be able to do this.

Done. Via FSCapture latest version on Win8.1
Unfortunately I had to resize it down very hard, because the original filesize was 3.1Mb and was rejected by the forum
But if you want the original I can email to you privately...

2016-03-09 sucuri_c.png

[Cosmo.]

Thank you. I don't need a more detailed screenshot. All I wanted to know is, if my suspicion as described above was right; obviously it is.

My conclusion is, that the inability to capture the forum with shutter /gnome-web-photo is not a matter of the configuration of the Sucuri firewall (that could have been a reason), as I expect that Sucuri themselves know, how to configure it right. Merely it seems to be a limitation coming from the Sucuri firewall itself and probably there is nothing, that can be done about that.

[flyingrhino]

Merely it seems to be a limitation coming from the Sucuri firewall itself

Possibly. But also it might be the way gnome-web-photo sends requests - possibly it is making malformed get requests or something else not quite right in the protocol. Capturing an unencrypted page with wireshark would have helped, but both sucuri and the forum are ssl wrapped. Unless gnome web photo struggles with https? An easy test is to capture some other https page with GWP and check if it consistently fails

If someone reading this post encounters an http page that doesn't capture properly with GWP then please post the url . I'm not an expert in http, but I'm very good at wireshark, and I can do a capture with GWP and compare it to a regular web browser

[br1anstorm]

I revisited this thread while looking into the possibility of using Shutter as a screen capture tool. The debate between Flying Rhino and Cosmo is mostly above my head. But I just thought I'd mention that in the Linux Mint community website there is a tutorial and posts about Shutter.

That discussion suggests that to make Shutter work properly, it's necessary also to download TWO other packages. I have not yet done this installation. But apparently you have to:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install libgoo-canvas-perl gnome-web-photo

.

So maybe flyingrhino had problems because he had not downloaded and installed "libgoo-canvas-perl" as well as "gnome-web-photo"?

I'm just guessing. But maybe others will explore this possibility further?

[flyingrhino]

Hi,

So maybe flyingrhino had problems because he had not downloaded and installed "libgoo-canvas-perl" as well as "gnome-web-photo"?

Thanks for thinking of me
I have these two installed, the problem is that *certain webpages* aren't captured using these tools. It's because of how the webpage is rendered inside the tool before being presented to shutter.
This problem is solved by using an in-browser screenshot plugin, because then your browser will do the rendering.

Now the only outstanding requirement of shutter is to do scrolling captures of regular programs such as file managers, etc.

[phd21]

Hi Everyone,

+1 for XnViewMP, an incredibly useful program.

+1 for the superb "Shutter" screen capture program. You can also easily change its options to a default folder for screenshots, and use its default image editor, or select another image editor program that you have installed. Another cool feature, is that I can take a panoramic screenshot of all 4 of my virtual desktops into 1 image.

*** FYI-1: For all of you that think there is no "scrolling", or full web page, screen capture program for Linux, there is, and it is called "Fireshot"; and it is a wonderful browser add-on (plug-in) that works great. After installing it, you might consider changing the default save folder though. I am pretty sure it is available for most browsers. Of course, you always print a webpage to a PDF file as well, or save it in various formats as well.

Firefox version of "Fireshot"
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... /fireshot/

FYI-2: If you want simple and fast image editing, then using the "Kolourpaint" program is hard to beat.

FYI-3:

If you are not using Linux Mint KDE, and want to be able to run some very high quality KDE applications, like DigiKam, ShowFoto, Gwenview, and many others, then install these few programs below in the quote box in blue, which are perfectly safe for any edition of Linux mint.

If you're experiencing issues with KDE apps (like Okular, Gwenview (gwenrename), KStars, kdenlive, "K3b", etc...)
run the following command from your console terminal prompt: (you can copy & paste it too)
sudo apt-get install kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins

Depending on your setup, you might also need to install "KDE-runtime" as well.

Hope this helps ...

Shutter_ImagEditor_Options-sm.jpg

[rjs.swarnkar]

Hi, I think a Photo manager does NOT qualifies a good screenshot tool.
And yes, FSCapture is really powerful tool. It has a great feature to take and as well as EDIT the photos. I am looking for something which can minimize to system tray and gets active as I press Printscreen. Also, something which can take partial screen, scrolling window screen, editing, blurring, highlighting just after taking screenshot.

(It becomes too slow for me to edit the screenshots afters saving them to clipboard. So I don't like using a separate photo editor after I saved the screenshot. Too slow for me)

Bad thing about running with WINE is that the it does not works when pressed print screen. Nor it can detect the Ctrl+Alt+Print shortcut key.

As of now I am using Kazam.