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Now I Can Xee
When perusing images I’ve saved, I can be struck by random moods. To escape the order the Finder imposes on QuickLook browsing, I’ve turned to utility programs. Some time ago I happened on a program called Xee, which let you jump among the images in a folder by hitting one key. However, this handiness began to seem at threat with the approach of “support for 32-bit applications will be removed.” I went so far as to move up from the free version of Xee to a paid-for revision, and carried on for a while longer.
After I’d upgraded to Big Sur and thrown out my remaining 32-bit applications, though, I discovered that while the new version of Xee still ran, it wouldn’t play animated GIF files any more. This was just enough of a problem I started casting around again for new utilities. One program called qView seemed adequate, but had to be switched via its preferences from sorted to shuffled browsing and could step forward but not back through the frames of an animated GIF, and both those things weren’t quite as versatile as Xee had been. I kept casting around for other options, and then, through a new comment on the comparison I’d first found qView through, saw the open source code for the old 32-bit version of Xee was still being updated.
A link was offered to a compiled version of the updated program, and I downloaded it and got it started up (with some help from the “xattr” command in Terminal to dodge “unidentified developer” problems, as risky as this might get in the end). However, the program would display some images and crash trying to show others. The “so close and yet so far” feeling was setting in when I sorted out one person had made some further revisions to their branch of source code since the program I’d found had been compiled.
I know just enough about Xcode to compile presupplied projects in it, which pretty much amounts to “just enough to be dangerous.” With the heftiness of that program, I temporized to the point of installing an older version on a secondary portable stuck running High Sierra, then downloaded an archive of the source code, opened it in Xcode, and started compilation with a mental cross of my fingers. Warnings piled up about deprecations and other quibbles, but in the end I had an application, and it displayed the comparative handful of images I’d accumulated on that computer fiddling around with “Atkinson dithering via Python.” The only question was whether the program would also work transferred to my main iMac running Big Sur, but as it turned out it did. This may only be a temporary solution before I get around to “Apple Silicon” at last (when trying to choose among new iMac colours, it is a bit tempting to say I’d buy one striped across the back, given Apple has arranged its options in promotional shots in the order of its old logo) or just now one option among several (in writing up this post, I found a few new tricks to GraphicConverter’s slide show), but for me it was still something to have managed even what little I did.
After I’d upgraded to Big Sur and thrown out my remaining 32-bit applications, though, I discovered that while the new version of Xee still ran, it wouldn’t play animated GIF files any more. This was just enough of a problem I started casting around again for new utilities. One program called qView seemed adequate, but had to be switched via its preferences from sorted to shuffled browsing and could step forward but not back through the frames of an animated GIF, and both those things weren’t quite as versatile as Xee had been. I kept casting around for other options, and then, through a new comment on the comparison I’d first found qView through, saw the open source code for the old 32-bit version of Xee was still being updated.
A link was offered to a compiled version of the updated program, and I downloaded it and got it started up (with some help from the “xattr” command in Terminal to dodge “unidentified developer” problems, as risky as this might get in the end). However, the program would display some images and crash trying to show others. The “so close and yet so far” feeling was setting in when I sorted out one person had made some further revisions to their branch of source code since the program I’d found had been compiled.
I know just enough about Xcode to compile presupplied projects in it, which pretty much amounts to “just enough to be dangerous.” With the heftiness of that program, I temporized to the point of installing an older version on a secondary portable stuck running High Sierra, then downloaded an archive of the source code, opened it in Xcode, and started compilation with a mental cross of my fingers. Warnings piled up about deprecations and other quibbles, but in the end I had an application, and it displayed the comparative handful of images I’d accumulated on that computer fiddling around with “Atkinson dithering via Python.” The only question was whether the program would also work transferred to my main iMac running Big Sur, but as it turned out it did. This may only be a temporary solution before I get around to “Apple Silicon” at last (when trying to choose among new iMac colours, it is a bit tempting to say I’d buy one striped across the back, given Apple has arranged its options in promotional shots in the order of its old logo) or just now one option among several (in writing up this post, I found a few new tricks to GraphicConverter’s slide show), but for me it was still something to have managed even what little I did.