Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

     feh - image viewer and cataloguer

SYNOPSIS

     feh [options] file ...

DESCRIPTION

     feh is an image viewer using the imlib2 library to open and manipulate
     images.  It has a large number of operational modes.  The default mode is
     an image slideshow, showing one image at a time from those specified on
     the command line.  Keys and mouse control may be used to move through
     them.  Other modes can be specified on the commandline, and are described
     below.

     feh can also recurse through a directory structure to form a filelist for
     processing, and will convert directory names on the commandline into a
     list of their contents automatically.

     Filelists can be sorted in a number of ways.  The default is the order in
     which the files were specified on the commandline, or the order in which
     they were read from the disk.  You can specify sorting modes such as
     randomize or you can sort by filename, image name, width, height, pixels,
     etc.  Filelists can also be saved to or loaded from files.

MODES

     Montage mode forms a montage from the filelist.  The resulting image can
     be viewed or saved, and its size can be limited by height, width or both.

     Collage mode is very similar to montage mode, except the images are
     distributed randomly and may overlap each other.

     Index mode forms an index print from the filelist.  Image thumbnails are
     shown along with the filename, filesize and pixel size, printed using a
     truetype font of your choice.  The resulting image can be viewed or
     saved, and its size can be limited by height, width or both.

     Thumbnail mode is like index mode, but the mini-images are clickable and
     open the selected image in a new window.

     Multiwindow mode shows images in multiple windows, instead of as a
     slideshow in one window.  Don’t use with a large filelist ;)

     Fullscreen mode shows images in fullscreen view.  Can be combined with a
     slide-change delay to show an automated presentation.

     List mode doesn’t display images.  Outputs an ls - style listing of the
     files in the filelist, including image info such as size, pixels, type,
     etc.  Customlist mode will display whatever image info you want, in the
     format you choose.

     feh can also list either all the loadable files in a filelist or all the
     unloadable files.  Useful for preening a directory.

     feh also has the ability to load files via http or ftp, simply specify
     the url on the commandline.

     feh can read options from the commandline, or from a config file.  The
     syntax is the same in each case.  See CONFIG FILE SYNTAX for details
     about using themes defined in a config file.  These methods may be used
     in conjunction.

OPTIONS

     -A, --action action
             Specify a string as an action to perform on the image.  In
             slideshow or multiwindow modes, the action will be run when the
             enter key is pressed, in list mode, the action will be run for
             each file listed.  In loadables/unloadables mode, the action will
             be run for each loadable/unloadable file, respectively.  The
             action will be executed by /bin/sh.  Use format specifiers to
             refer to image info.  See FORMAT SPECIFIERS for examples.  E.g.
             "feh -A mv ~/images/%n *".  In slideshow mode, the next image
             will be shown after running the action, in multiwindow mode, the
             window will be closed.

     --action1 .. --action9
             Extra actions which can be set and triggered using the appropiate
             number key.

     -Z, --auto-zoom
             Zoom pictures to screen size in fullscreen (affected by --stretch
             and --ignore-aspect).

     --bg-center file
             Set file as centered desktop background

     --bg-fill file
             Like --bg-scale, but preserves aspect ratio by zooming the image
             until it fits.  Either a horizontal or a vertical part of the
             image will be cut off.

     --bg-scale file
             Set file as scaled desktop background.  This will fill the whole
             background with file, but its aspect ratio will not be preserved.

     --bg-seamless file
             Like --bg-tile, but with blurry corners so that it is (in some
             cases ;-)) less obvious that the image is too small for the
             screen.

     --bg-tile file
             Set file as desktop background, tiled if necessary.  feh can use
             enlightenment IPC if you are running it, or it will fall back to
             X methods.  feh stores the commandline necessary to restore the
             background in ~/.fehbg.  So to have your background restored when
             you restart X, add the line "‘cat ~/.fehbg‘" to your X startup
             script (e.g. ~/.xinitrc).  Note that you only need to do this for
             non E window managers.

     -x, --borderless
             Create borderless windows.

     -Q, --builtin
             Use builtin HTTP client to grab remote files instead of wget(1).

     --cache-thumbnails
             Enable (experimental) thumbnail caching in ~/.thumbnails.  Only
             works with thumbnails <= 256x256 pixels.

     --caption-path path
             Path to directory containing image captions.  This turns on
             caption viewing, and if captions are found in path, which is
             relative to the directory of each image, they are overlayed on
             the displayed image.  E.g. with caption path "captions/", and
             viewing image "images/foo.jpg", the caption will be looked for in
             "images/captions/foo.jpg.txt".

     -c, --collage
             Enable collage mode.  Collage mode is very similar to montage
             mode, except the images are distributed randomly.  When using
             collage mode, you should also specify --limit-width and
             --limit-height.

     -L, --customlist format
             Use format (printf-like string containing image info specifiers)
             for list output.  See FORMAT SPECIFIERS.

     --cycle-once
             Exit feh after one loop through the slideshow.

     --draw-actions
             Draw the defined actions and what they do at the top-left of the
             image.

     -d, --draw-filename
             Draw the filename at the top-left of the image.

     -f, --filelist file
             This option is similar to the playlists used by music software.
             If file exists, it will be read for a list of files to load, in
             the order they appear.  The format is a list of image filenames,
             absolute or relative to the current directory, one filename per
             line.  If file doesn’t exist, it will be created from the
             internal filelist at the end of a viewing session.  This is best
             used to store the results of complex sorts (-Spixels for example)
             for later viewing.  Any changes to the internal filelist (such as
             deleting a file or it being pruned for being unloadable) will be
             saved to file when feh exits.  You can add files to filelists by
             specifying them on the commandline when also specifying the list.

     -C, --fontpath path
             Specify path as extra directory in which to search for fonts; can
             be used multiple times to add multiple paths.

     -I, --fullindex
             Same as Index mode, but you also get image size and dimensions
             printed below each thumbnail.

     -F, --full-screen
             Make the window fullscreen.

     -g, --geometry width x height
             Limit (and don’t change) the window size.  Takes an X-style
             geometry string like 640x480.  Note that larger images will be
             zoomed out to fit but you can see them at 1:1 by clicking the
             zoom button.

     -h, --help
             display help output and exit.

     --hide-pointer
             Hide the pointer (useful for slideshows etc).

     -B, --image-bg style
             Use style as background for transparent image parts and the like.
             Accepted values: white, black, default.

     -i, --index
             Enable Index mode.  Index mode is similar to montage mode, and
             accepts the same options.  It creates an index print of
             thumbails, printing the image name beneath each thumbnail.  Index
             mode enables certain other options, see INDEX MODE OPTIONS.

     --index-dim bool
             Toggle showing image dimensions in thumbnail/index mode.

     --index-name bool
             Toggle showing the filename in thumbnail/index mode.

     --index-size bool
             Toggle showing the filesize in thumbnail/index mode.

     -k, --keep-http
             When viewing files using HTTP, feh normally deletes the local
             copies after viewing, or, if caching, on exit.  This option
             prevents this so that you get to keep the local copies.  They
             will be in /tmp with "feh" in the name.

     -l, --list
             Don’t display images.  Analyse them and display an ls(1) - style
             listing.  Useful in scripts to hunt out images of a certain
             size/resolution/type etc.

     -U, --loadable
             Don’t display images.  Just print out their names if imlib2 can
             successfully load them.

     -), --menu-bg file
             Use file as background image in menus.

     --menu-border int
             Specify number of pixels that define the menu background’s
             border.  Borders are not stretched when images are scaled.

     -M, --menu-font font
             Use font (truetype, with size, like "yudit/12") as menu font.

     --menu-style file
             Read file to determine menu style.

     -m, --montage
             Enable montage mode.  Montage mode creates a new image consisting
             of a grid of thumbnails of the images in the filelist.  When
             montage mode is selected, certain other options become available.
             See MONTAGE MODE OPTIONS.

     -w, --multiwindow
             Disable slideshow mode.  With this setting, instead of opening
             multiple files in slideshow mode, multiple windows will be
             opened; one per file.

     --no-jump-on-resort
             Don’t jump to the first image after resorting the filelist.

     -N, --no-menus
             Don’t load or show any menus.

     --no-xinerama
             Disable Xinerama support.  Only makes sense when you have
             Xinerama support compiled in.

     -j, --output-dir directory
             Save files to directory (only useful with -k)

     -p, --preload
             Preload images.  This doesn’t mean hold them in RAM, it means run
             through them and eliminate unloadable images first.  Otherwise
             they will be removed as you flick through.  This also analyses
             the images to get data for use in sorting, such as pixel size,
             type etc.  A preload run will be automatically performed if you
             specify one of these sort modes.

     -q, --quiet
             Don’t report non-fatal errors for failed loads.  Verbose and
             quiet modes are not mutually exclusive, the first controls
             informational messages, the second only errors.

     -z, --randomize
             When viewing multiple files in a slideshow, randomize the file
             list before displaying.

     -_, --rcfile file
             Use file to parse themes and options from, instead of the default
             ~/.fehrc, /etc/fehrc files.

     -r, --recursive
             Recursively expand any directories in the commandline arguments
             to the content of those directories, all the way down to the
             bottom level.

     -R, --reload int
             Reload images after int seconds.  Mainly useful when viewing
             webcams via http.

     -n, --reverse
             Reverse the sort order.  Use this to invert the order of the
             filelist.  E.g. to sort in reverse width order, use -nSwidth.

     -., --scale-down
             When not in fullscreen: Scale images to screen size if they are
             too big.

     --screen-clip bool
             Disable/Enable screen clipping based on window size.  With this
             disabled, windows may become very large, making them unmanageable
             in certain window managers.

     -D, --slideshow-delay float
             For slideshow mode, wait float seconds between automatically
             changing slides.  Useful for presentations.  Specify a negative
             number to set the delay (which will then be float * (-1)), but
             start feh in paused mode.

     -S, --sort sort_type
             The file list may be sorted according to image parameters.
             Allowed sort types are: name, filename, width, height, pixels,
             size, format.  For sort modes other than name or filename, a
             preload run will be necessary, causing a delay proportional to
             the number of images in the list.

     -|, --start-at filename
             Start the filelist at filename.  See USAGE EXAMPLES.

     -T, --theme theme
             Load options from config file with name theme - see CONFIG FILE
             SYNTAX for more info.  Note that options from the theme file
             always override commandline options.

     -t, --thumbnails
             Same as Index mode, but the thumbnails are clickable image
             launchers.

     -~, --thumb-title string
             Set title for windows opened from thumbnail mode.  See also
             FORMAT SPECIFIERS.

     -^, --title title
             Set window title for slideshow mode.

     -u, --unloadable
             Don’t display images.  Just print out their names if imlib2 can
             NOT successfully load them.

     -V, --verbose
             output useful information, progress bars, etc.

     -v, --version
             output version information and exit.

     -G, --wget-timestamp
             Don’t add a timestamp ("?1234") to URLs when (re)loading them.

     --zoom percent
             Zoom images by percent when in full screen mode or when window
             geometry is fixed.  When combined with --auto-zoom, zooming will
             be limited to the specified percent.

BUTTON OPTIONS

     -0, --reload-button int
             Set button to reload the image (default: 0).

     -1, --pan-button int
             Set button to pan the image (hold button down and move mouse to
             move the image).  When the mouse is not moved, advances to the
             next image in slideshow mode.  (default: 1, usually the left
             button).

     -2, --zoom-button int
             Set button to enable zoom mode (default: 2, usually the middle
             button).

     -3, --menu-button int
             Set button to activate the menu.  (default: 3, usually the right
             button).

     --menu-ctrl-mask
             Require CTRL+Button for menu activation.

     -4, --prev-button int
             Set button to switch to the previous image in slideshow mode
             (default: 4, usually 〈mousewheel up〉).

     -5, --next-button int
             Set button to switch to the next image in slideshow mode
             (default: 5, usually 〈mousewheel down〉).

     -8, --rotate-button int
             Use CTRL+Button to rotate the current image (default: 2).

     --no-rotate-ctrl-mask
             Don’t require CTRL+Button for rotation - just use the button.

     -9, --blur-button int
             Use CTRL+Button for blurring (default: 1).

     --no-blur-ctrl-mask
             Don’t require CTRL+Button for blurring - just use the button.

MONTAGE MODE OPTIONS

     -a, --alpha int
             When drawing thumbnails onto the background, set their
             transparency level to int (0 - 255).

     -b, --bg file | trans
             Use file as background for your montage.  With this option
             specified, the montage size will default to the size of file if
             no size restrictions were specified.  Alternatively, if file is
             "trans", the background will be made transparent.

     -X, --ignore-aspect
             By default, the montage thumbnails will retain their aspect
             ratios, while fitting into thumb-width/-height.  This options
             forces them to be the size set by --thumb-width and
             --thumb-height.  This will prevent any empty space in the final
             montage.

     -H, --limit-height pixels
             Limit the height of the montage.  These options can be used
             together to define the image size exactly, or separately.  If
             only one is specified, the other is calculated from the number of
             files specified and the size of the thumbnails.  The default is
             to limit width to 800 pixels and calculate the height as
             necessary.

     -W, --limit-width pixels
             Limit the width of the montage.

     -o, --output file
             Save the created montage to file.

     -O, --output-only file
             Just save the created montage to file without displaying it.

     -s, --stretch
             Normally, if an image is smaller than the specified thumbnail
             size, it will not be enlarged.  If this option is set, the image
             will be scaled up to fit the thumnail size.  Aspect ratio will be
             maintained unles --ignore-aspect is specified.

     -E, --thumb-height pixels
             Set thumbnail height.

     -y, --thumb-width pixels
             Set thumbnail width.

     --thumb-redraw n
             Only relevant for --thumbnails: Redraw thumbnail window every n
             images.  In feh <= 1.5, the thumbnail image used to be redrawn
             after every computed thumbnail (so, it updated immediately).
             However, since the redrawing takes quite long (especially for
             thumbnail mode on a large filelist), this turned out to be a
             major performance penalty.  As a workaround, the thumbnail image
             is redrawn every 10th image now by default. Set n = 1 to get the
             old behaviour, n = 0 will only redraw once all thumbnails are
             loaded.

INDEX MODE OPTIONS

     -e, --font font
             Set font for printing the information under each thumbnail.
             Should be a truetype font, resident in the current directory or
             the font directory, and should be defined in the form
             fontname/points, like "myfont/12".

     -@, --title-font font
             Set font to print a title on the index, if no font is specified,
             no title will be printed.

FORMAT SPECIFIERS

     %f      Image path/filename

     %h      Image height

     %l      Total number of files in filelist

     %m      Current mode

     %n      Image name

     %p      Number of image pixels

     %P      feh

     %s      Image size in bytes

     %t      Image format

     %u      Number of current file

     %w      Image width

     %v      feh version

CONFIG FILE SYNTAX

     The config file allows the naming of option groups, called themes.  If
     ~/.fehrc or /etc/fehrc exist, feh will look in them for name/options
     pairs.  If neither of them exist, feh will create a default one in
     ~/.fehrc.

     It takes entries of the form "theme options ...", where theme is the name
     of the entry and options are the options which will be applied when the
     theme is used.

     An example entry would be "imagemap -rVq --thumb-width 40 --thumb-height
     30".

     You cane use this theme in two ways.  Either call "feh -Timagemap *.jpg"
     or create a symbolic link to feh with the name of the theme you want it
     to use.  So from the example above: "ln -s ‘which feh~/bin/imagemap".
     Now just run "imagemap *.jpg" to use these options.

     You can combine these themes with commandline options.  An example .fehrc
     is provided with a couple of cool example themes.

KEYS

     In an image window, the following keys may be used:

     a       Toggle actions display (see --draw-actions)

     c       Caption entry mode.  If --caption-path has been specified, then
             this enables caption editing.  The caption at the bottom of the
             screen will turn yellow and can be edited.  Hit return to confirm
             and save the caption, or escape to cancel editing.  Note that you
             can insert an actual newline into the caption using
             〈CTRL+return〉.

     d       Toggle filename display (see --draw-filename)

     f       Save the current filelist to a unique filename

     h       Pause/Continue the slideshow.  When it is paused, it will not
             automatically change slides based on --slideshow-delay.

     m       Show menu.  Use the arrow keys and return to select items,
             〈escape〉 to close the menu.

     n, 〈space〉, 〈right arrow〉
             Show next image

     o       Toggle pointer visibility

     p, 〈backspace〉, 〈left arrow〉
             Show previous image

     q       Quit feh

     r       Reload current image.  Useful for webcams

     s       Save the current image to a unique filename

     v       Toggle fullscreen

     w       Change window size to fit current image size

     x       Close current window

     z       Jump to a random position in the current filelist

     <, >    In place editing - rotate the images 90 degrees
             (counter)clockwise.  The rotation is lossless, but may create
             artifacts in some image corners when used with JPEG images.
             Rotating in the reverse direction will make them go away.  See
             jpegtran(1) for more about lossless JPEG rotation.

     0 .. 9  Execute the corresponding action (0 = --action, 1 = --action1
             etc.)

     〈return〉
             Run the command defined by --action

     〈home〉  Show first image

     〈end〉   Show last image

     〈page up〉
             Go forward ~5% of the filelist

     〈page down〉
             Go backward ~5% of the filelist

     〈escape〉
             Quit the slideshow

     +       Increase reload delay

     -       Decrease reload delay

     〈delete〉
             Remove current file from filelist

     〈CTRL+delete〉
             Remove current file from filelist and delete it

     〈keypad left〉
             Move the image to the lift

     〈keypad right〉
             Move the image to the right

     〈keypad up〉
             Move the image up

     〈keypad down〉
             Move the image down

     〈keypad begin〉
             Antialias the image

     〈keypad +〉
             Zoom in

     〈keypad -〉
             Zoom out

     〈keypad *〉
             Zoom to 100%

     〈keypad /〉
             Zoom to fit the window size

MOUSE ACTIONS

     When viewing an image, by default mouse button 1 pans (moves the image
     around) or, when only clicked, moves to the next image (slideshow mode
     only); button 2 zooms (click and drag left->right to zoom in, right->left
     to zoom out, click once to restore zoom to 100%); and mouse button 3
     opens the menu.

     CTRL+Button 1 blurs or sharpens the image (drag left to blur, right to
     sharpen); CTRL+Button 2 rotates the image around the center point.

     A note about pan and zoom modes: In pan mode, if you reach a window
     border but haven’t yet panned to the end of the image, feh will warp your
     cursor to the opposite border so you can continue panning.

     When clicking the zoom button and immediately releasing it, the image
     will be back at 100% zoom.  When clicking it and moving the mouse while
     holding the button down, the zoom will be continued at the previous zoom
     level.  Do not let the short snapback to 100% confuse you, it’ll be
     removed as soon as you move the mouse.  The zoom will always happen so
     that the pixel on which you entered the zoom mode remains stationary.
     So, to enlarge a specific part of an image, click the zoom button on that
     part.

SIGNALS

     In slideshow mode, feh handles the following signals:

     SIGUSR1
             Switch to next image

     SIGUSR2
             Switch to previous image

USAGE EXAMPLES

     Here are some examples of useful option combinations

     feh -r /opt/images
             Recursively scan /opt/images and show all the images in a
             slideshow

     feh -rSname /opt/images
             Same, but sort by filename

     feh -m /opt/images/landscapes
             Create a montage from the images in /opt/images/landscapes

     feh -Xrm -W 400 --thumb-width 30 --thumb-height 20 landscapes
             Create a montage from the images in ./landscapes and all
             directories below it.  Limit the width of the image to 400 and
             make the thumbnails 30x20, ignoring aspect ratio

     feh -irFarial/14 -O index.jpg /opt/images
             Make an index print of /opt/images and all directories below it,
             using 14 point Arial to write the image info under each
             thumbnail.  Save the image as index.jpg and don’t display it,
             just exit.  Note that this even works without a running X server

     feh -LrSpixels /opt/images
             List the images in /opt/images and all directories below, sorted
             by pixel size, giving as much info as possible

     feh -kR30 http://example.org/webcam.jpg
             View a webcam, reloading every 30 seconds, saving the images in
             /tmp

     feh --unloadable -r /opt/images
             Print all unloadable images in /opt/images, recursively

     feh -w /opt/images/holidays
             Open each image in /opt/images/holidays in its own window

     feh -FD5 -Sname /opt/images/presentation
             Show the images in .../presentation, sorted by name, in
             fullscreen, automatically change to the next image after 5
             seconds

     feh -rSwidth -A "mv ’%f’ ~/images/’%n’" /opt/images
             View all images in /opt/images and below, sorted by width, move
             an image to ~/image/image_name when enter is pressed

     feh --start-at ./foo.jpg .
             View all images in the current directory, starting with foo.jpg.
             All other images are still in the slideshow and can be viewed
             normally

     feh --start-at foo.jpg *
             Same as above

DEPENDENCIES

     feh requires the jpegtran binary (usually distributed in "libjpeg-progs"
     or similar) for lossless rotation.

     To view images from URLs such as http://, you need to have wget available
     or use the builtin HTTP client (see --builtin).

BUGS

     Xenarama support has a few problems, especially when not on Xinerama
     screen 0.

     There are probably other bugs, too.  If you find one, let me know :)

LICENSE

     Copyright Tom Gilbert (and various contributors), 1999, 2000

     Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
     copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
     "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
     without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
     distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit
     persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the
     following conditions:

     The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
     in all copies of the Software and its documentation and acknowledgment
     shall be given in the documentation and software packages that this
     Software was used.

     THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
     OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
     MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
     IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
     LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
     FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
     DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

     Email bugs and feature requests to 〈derf@chaosdorf.de〉

     Original author (no longer developing): 〈feh_sucks@linuxbrit.co.uk