Faststone Viewing Skin Problem, Can You De-skin it?

[Phil R]

I just downloaded Faststone.

However, the text is too small to read without getting next to
monitor.

It looks like whoever designed the skin used a large monitor
and, with a smaller moniter it is unreadable.

Is there any way to simply get rid of the skin and use my
standard windows fonts and colors scheme? You can scale them to
work with any size moniter.

Where it says change skin, there is no no skin option.

I can't find any settings to turn the skin off?

 

[Ben]

I can't find any settings to turn the skin off?

Sadly, afaik, there aren't any. I emailed the author when I first
discovered the program a year or so ago to request he considered a
skinless option. I received a polite reply, but there's no sign of the
option making it in there yet Shame, because I'm not a fan of
pointless bling on my apps I ended up back with my old combination of
Irfanview, Futurix and XnView depending on what I'm doing.

B

 

[Karl Barth]

Where it says change skin, there is no no skin option.

I can't find any settings to turn the skin off?

Download latest version of FastStone Image Viewer v2.29 - there are 9
different skin settings including windows classic, which I prefer.

www.FastStone.org

Cha

 

[Phil R]

Download latest version of FastStone Image Viewer v2.29 -
there are 9 different skin settings including windows
classic, which I prefer.

www.FastStone.org

Cha

That's what I have: 2.29, with 9 choices, all of which were
build on the same very large ratio of total height to that of
the smallest font and none of which work on a relatively small
relativedly high resolution monitor which requires a smaller
ratio.

The problem is I don't want a skin at all, especially one that
is too small for me to read. I want a standard Windows
interface that uses my standard colors and font scheme, that
works and which I can read with no difficulty at all.

I also don't want that brain dead black on light gray color
scheme.

I thought everyone in the computer business knew by now that
when you fix things that aren't broke, like the standard windows
interface that's worked since Windows 3, it's guaranteed that
you will break something.

Faststone should do what Opera does, provide a choice of a skin
or a native window interface.

I don't understand why developer like Faststone spends hundreds
of hours on complicated progrmming tasks and then cuts a simple
function like this that makes the whole program unusable or some
people.

 

[Thomas Lauer]

That's what I have: 2.29, with 9 choices, all of which were
build on the same very large ratio of total height to that of
the smallest font and none of which work on a relatively small
relativedly high resolution monitor which requires a smaller
ratio.

The problem is I don't want a skin at all, especially one that
is too small for me to read. I want a standard Windows
interface that uses my standard colors and font scheme, that
works and which I can read with no difficulty at all.

Seconded. That's one of the main reasons why I don't use FS often: the
menus etc. are ridiculously small on my high-res monitor. Unusable,
almost.

You would think that people test their apps not only at 1024x768 but
also some larger resolutions.

I don't understand why developer like Faststone spends hundreds
of hours on complicated progrmming tasks and then cuts a simple
function like this that makes the whole program unusable or some
people.

Neither do I. Well, perhaps one of these days...

 

[Bob Adkins]

I just downloaded Faststone.

I can't find any settings to turn the skin off?

Try the light version, called "Maxview".

It's skinless and borderless, and is a pure picture viewer. Not many editing
features, but a very fast, clean viewer.

http://www.faststone.org/FSMaxViewDetail.htm

 

[Phil R]

http://www.faststone.org/FSMaxViewDetail.htm

I am glad you told me about this because it escaped me on the
Faststone website. I didn't realize that Faststone had two
programs labeled viewer, and that the lead product, labeled
"Image Viewer," is really an editor.

I installed it without any problem.

Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the viewer program lacks
what would be to me Faststone's main advantage: its directory
preview function. They have it in Image Viewer. But in MaxView
you can't view a directory because the open box will open only
files.

I have to ask, what do the people at Faststone have against
Windows standards? Are they Mac people, who just don't about
standards in the Windows world. If so, someone needs to tell
them that when in Rome you are supposed to conduct yourselves as
he Romans do.

Frankly, the MaxView borderless interface sucks. Don't the
developers know that the Windows border performs an important
function. The color of the border tells the user where his key
strokes are going. You set this color as the active border
color in the Windows color settings. I use bright red for the
active border and dark maroon for inactive borders. The color
brings my attention to what window I am working with.

With the MaxView interface and no border at all, nothing tells
the user MaxView is the active window and is taking your
keystrokes. The MaxView title bar also doesn't change colors to
tell you the window is active. The window looks the same whether
active or inactive.

That sucks.

 

[Bob Adkins]

Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the viewer program lacks
what would be to me Faststone's main advantage: its directory
preview function. They have it in Image Viewer. But in MaxView
you can't view a directory because the open box will open only
files.

Windows Explorer can not be beat for organizing and thumbnails. I think a
file browser is redundant fluff in a picture viewer. Try using Explorer in
the "Folders" view, browse to your pictures, and click on the thumbnails.
Used this way, MaxView behaves just like the big FastStone image viewer.

In my opinion, the borderless window in MaxView RULES. When viewing photos,
I don't need to see a bunch of distracting text, frames, and other
miscellaneous stuff. Just the picture, please! That's why it's called a
"Picture Viewer". The idea is to show the pictures just like you would want
your family album portraits. No borders, no distracting text or icons, just
those beautiful pictures in all their glory.

Or,,, maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Phil R]

Windows Explorer can not be beat for organizing and
thumbnails. I think a file browser is redundant fluff in a
picture viewer. Try using Explorer in the "Folders" view,
browse to your pictures, and click on the thumbnails. Used
this way, MaxView behaves just like the big FastStone image
viewer.

Windows Explorer does not provide directory preview function.
In the FastStone editor viewer, as opposed to the viewer viewer,
when viewing a directory, you see a folder icon for each
subdirectory. The subdirectory folder icon has 4 thumbnails of
what is inside the subdirectory. It is the preview of the
images in the subdirectory that approaches sliced bread as a
good idea.

Windows explorer shows only a folder icon for subdirectories in
a directory.

 

[Bob Adkins]

Windows explorer shows only a folder icon for subdirectories in
a directory.

Explorer shows a preview of the pictures in each folder, if I understand
what you mean.