The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

I'm deeply unsure about what relation this cPicture holds to the similar named program already in the database (see http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=548), but since it is an (allegedly!) portable freeware supporting plugins, I feel it definitely deserves a post.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Digital-Photo-Tools/cPicture.shtml wrote:Quickly find and organize your collection of pictures with various search tools and the possibility to edit EXIF data, run slideshows and more...

http://cpicture.thecloudsite.net/blog/index.php?controller=post&action=view&id_post=2 wrote:cPicture is a portable app: no Installation required. cPicture is available in a 64bit and 32bit version. For best performance run the 64bit version on a 64bit Windows because running a 32bit program on a 64bit Computer requires an emulated environment which can be slower.

Download latest cPicture release (currently v3.5.1) from http://cpicture.thecloudsite.net/ -- be sure to choose the English version.

cPicture was my preferred image viewer for a very long time and, giving the way the settings are layed out, I'm 100% sure that cPicture3 is a continuation of cPicture 1.6.5 from our DB.

That being said, any trick to make it portable?
If I create a file named cpicture.config in its folder, it stops creating it in AppData, but the settings saved in the registry are still there:



Verdict: partially portable, definitely not stealth. Still a great piece of software!

Thanks for the info, joby_toss.

Hi, I'm the author of cPicture. Thought I join here

joby_toss wrote:I'm 100% sure that cPicture3 is a continuation of cPicture 1.6.5 from our DB.

Thats right, it is a continuation of cPicture 1.6.5.

joby_toss wrote:That being said, any trick to make it portable?
If I create a file named cpicture.config in its folder, it stops creating it in AppData, but the settings saved in the registry are still there:

Thats the Ribbons and the MFC library that write to the registry to store their state. Nothing I can do about.
To store the settings in %appdata% is actually the recommended way in Windows. Don't want to save the settings files in the program files folder or current folder and definately not in the registry.

Jürgen

Late thanks for Jurgen's information above.

cPicture v3.6.1 released (changelog is at http://cpicture.thecloudsite.net/blog/).

http://cpicture.thecloudsite.net/blog/ wrote:cPicture is a portable App with no installation required.

cPicture entry web link is currently broken: the homepage is now http://cpicture.thecloudsite.net/; there is also mention of this version being freeware...

Jürgen: the program has a license (EULA) that appears to prevent simultaneous use and prevents redistribution. While simultaneous use issue is unique but not untenable, we are a site that ends up redistributing a lot of older programs that have become abandonware. Is there any chance you could add an exception to the redistribution clause in the event that you decide close the project down?

At the moment, I'm feeling particular pain from Microsoft's decision to pull their Photo Manager out of Office 2016. In particular, I've been really missing a simple tool to select a few image thumbnails in a directory and do simple modifications such as size and rotation. As such I came back to cPicture despite some concerns about the license. I was both surprised by the remarkable amount of functionality and the rather odd interface/usability versus standard Windows programs.

Steps: download, unzip, launch cPicture.exe, close and move the contents of C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\cPicture to the local folder.

Status: Not portable. Writes to empty folder to AppData and (unlike suggested above) various keys to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\TheCloud. This falls under the "noinstall" category as the program doesn't include an installer but doesn't keep itself to the local folder. Version tested: 3.8

Notable Features

* Lossless functions for crop and rotate.
* Simple batch operations (select thumbnails and run operation).
* Change/remove metadata.
* Available map based on location metadata.
* Video: basic viewing and - if you have ffmpeg installed - transformations.
* Detects image files within a given folder rather than making you jump through various folders looking for files.
* Basic file conversion BMP, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, (no compression options for PNG).
* Dupliate and image checker. In my (not exaustive) tests, it worked well.
* Works as a great launchpad for other image editors (has an "open with" menu for selected programs).

Problems

* No undo function after running a rotate/crop action.
* Weird placement of help / info menu under blue object where the "file" menu is usually located (its not labeled). It's the same destination as clicking "Help" under the "Other" tab.
* Some items in the ribbon are grayed out and it's not clear what's available and what's not until you hover your mouse over the feature.
* "Similar" image finder didn't work at all on my machine. Just showed me some images that didn't look at all alike.


Wishlist

* Ability to use search outide the \USER\Pictures folder
* Spacebar play/pause video
* More PNG/JPEG compression options
* Create picture webpage option - ability to save to native format (right now insists on moving everything to JPEG)
* Open license
* PDF edit functionality (this might be asking too much)

License: Still freeware (see EULA discussion above). A pro version is mentioned, but I believe that's just for donations

Softpedia: https://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedi ... ture.shtml

joby_toss wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2015 9:07 amIf I create a file named cpicture.config in its folder, it stops creating it in AppData, but the settings saved in the registry are still there

Jürgen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:53 pmThat’s the Ribbons and the MFC library that write to the registry to store their state. Nothing I can do about.

cPicture is freeware, but not open source. I did searches about the ribbon.

BowPad has a ribbon interface and is stealth. The source code is here.

Persisting Ribbon State provides code examples and says, “The application then saves the content of the IStream object to a file or the Windows registry.”

IUIRibbon::SaveSettingsToStream method says, “The stream is handed off to the host application for storage as appropriate.”

IUIRibbon::LoadSettingsFromStream method says, “The stream is supplied by the host application.”

Saving Ribbon Settings is an example of saving and loading a ribbon stream from a file named HelloRibbonSettings.dat.

Thanks for your feedback!
Looks like not everyone is that fond of the ribbons. I think they are great, but its difficult to get everyone's wish list in I guess?
Never bothered with the silly reg entry the MFC lib is doing, but if there is a (rather simple) way to get rid of this, I'm happy to change it.
Not sure what the issue is with the EULA. Please let me know what needs to be changed. Thought it is good to have one.

Jürgen wrote: ↑Never bothered with the silly reg entry the MFC lib is doing, but if there is a (rather simple) way to get rid of this, I'm happy to change it.

Not sure what the issue is with the EULA. Please let me know what needs to be changed. Thought it is good to have one.

The easiest way that comes to mind would be merging a .REG file to delete the offending key -- after backing up any needed content, OFC.
The EULA issue is also simple, IMHO: please make an exception to allow for non-profit distribution of verbatim packages/binaries.

And thank you for your support.

Thanks to a comment by Ennvoy, there appears to be a v3.8.8 of cPicture, available at:

http://cpicture.thecloudsite.net

I downloaded and tried it. Seems to be fully portable and freeware.

Thanks Andrew. I made some changes. The homepage was still pointing to the webarchive. Also the section how to extract is changed.

Andrew Lee wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2024 11:01 pm I downloaded and tried it. Seems to be fully portable and freeware.

Hmm, here on Win11 it does write into C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\cPicture
Also, changing the font size does not stick, it remains tiny which renders the app unusable for my eyes.

FileHandler wrote: ... changing the font size does not stick, it remains tiny which renders the app unusable for my eyes.

There are tools such as Magnifier https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2604 .... but I imagine ... a little bit cumbersome to use.
Just in case it is absolutely necessary!

Thanks @juverax,

the tiny font size is not my only problem, for now I will stick with fully portable alternatives like Faststone, FocusOn or Imagine.

I just have to try out every new viewer that comes around, always on the hunt for hidden gems. It's compulsive, I cannot help myself.