Displaying JPG images

[Don Coleman]

Fairlight wrote:

>Only Kenneth Brody would say something like:
>  
>
>>Use the START command:
>>
>>    system "start c:\rcprison\filepro\ndc\5852104520.jpg"
>>
>>(You can also "start iexplore.exe ..." to force IE to display the image
>>if you want.  However, by using only the filename, Windows will use
>>whatever program you or the user has configured to display images, and
>>not force the user to use IE.)
>>    
>>
>
>I -highly- recommend using start iexplore.exe whenever dealing with
>IE--especially on Win2K/IE6 and above.  I have a program that, during
>development, made use of starting HTML files simply by extension, and the
>calling program believed the fork() had never actually succeeded.  I
>started saying iexplore, and it stopped malfunctioning.  I could have
>generalised it to grab the registered browser but I really didn't give too
>much of a damn about that.  :)
>
>Now...as to the suggestion itself, I think it has problems in that, without
>use of JavaScript or ActiveX, you'll always get the IE window at the
>position and size of the last closed instantiation, with full toolbars,
>etc.  And IE in and of itself as an image viewer is bloated overkill to
>the Nth degree.  It's far more tempting to just bang out a quickie Tk app
>that will display the image in the minimum possible dimensioned window at
>user-definable top-left start coordinates.  That should take all of about
>20min, if I wanted to pursue it.  There are plenty of image viewers out
>there, but if -all- you want to do is view, you can make something a lot
>lighter with no menus, buttons, etc.  It simply displays and can be closed.
>No editing, etc., etc.
>
>But bloat aside, the aesthetics and positioning of IE are less than
>stellar unless you have extra controls in there to--well, control it.
>
>mark->
>  
>
Mark:

You are pretty much on the mark (sorry for the pun) with your 
suggestions.  Ideally, I would prefer a viewer program that I can:

Control the size and placement on the desktop

Not allow for editing (no MSPaint)

Be found by default in the same location on each Windows client (XP & 
WIN2000 mostly w/ only a couple 98's)

Display the image while my fP app. remains the active windows session 
(important).  I would not want to have to close each "image" windows 
session after each image has been displayed but have that same windows 
session display each new image in that same window.

Ken suggested using start C:\path\to\file to keep fP in control.  
However, when I execute it via @KEY there are two problems I need to 
resolve. 
1) After the start command is executed the image windows session is the 
active session, not the fP session.
2) Each time I execute the @KEY routine a new windows session containing 
the image is begun which then has to be manually closed.  I need to have 
a single windows session containing the image which is "refreshed" by 
each new image.

Don't know if this is possible or not.

Don Coleman