gliv(1)
π gliv β the OpenGL Image Viewer π
okay bestie, gather round, because gliv is literally the moment. it's a manual page from section 1 (general commands), and it's giving image viewer energy. β¨
πΈ SYNOPSIS πΈ
gliv [OPTIONS]... [FILES]...
π¦ DESCRIPTION π¦
so here's the tea: gliv uses gdk-pixbuf to load your images and OpenGL to render them. that's the whole vibe. and it lets you do some moving, rotating, zooming and slide show. iconic behavior, no notes. π
β¨ OPTIONS β¨
first things first, the order of operations, and this part matters so don't skip it:
the options get set to their default values first β "off" for flags β and then they're read either from ~/.glivrc or /etc/glivrc or a configuration file specified on the command line, and finally they're read from the command line. last one wins, basically. π«Ά
also! omitting the argument for an option that takes an "on|off" argument (flags) is like giving it "on". so --foo is the same as --foo=on if foo is an on|off flag. you don't have to spell it out. lowkey convenient.
-h,--helpβ print help and exit. the classic. π-V,--versionβ print version and exit.-a,--add-all[=on|off]β add all files in the directory. with this option, when you open a file on the command line or with the open dialog, all others files in the directory are added as well. yes, all of them. π-R,--recursive[=on|off]β recursive directory traversal. if gliv tries to load a direcory, it will also load every image all its subdirectories. it goes deep. π-S,--sort[=on|off]β show images in sorted order. the images list will be sorted before the slide show.-s,--shuffle[=on|off]β show images in random order. the images list will be shuffled before the slide show. chaos mode, but make it cute. π₯-F,--force-load[=on|off]β try to load every file. when loading a file, the loader is chosen according to the filename extension in order to optimize the loading time. if the extension is unknown, the file is ignored β with this option gliv will always try to load the file. no file left behind. π-C,--client[=on|off]β connect to a running gliv, appending to the list. with this option, gliv will open the files passed in the arguments in the gliv server window. it can also be used with the-0option. the gliv server is the latest launched gliv or the one which has been chosen using the Options menu. bestie-to-bestie communication fr fr.-c,--client-clear[=on|off]β connect to a running gliv, replacing the list. this is like the--clientoption except that the specified list on the client will replace the list on the server instead of being appended to. out with the old. π-e,--build-menus[=on|off]β no images menu at startup. disabling the images menus creation at startup makes it faster, especially with many files on the command line. speed. β-g,--glivrc[=FILE]β use this configuration file or none. specify it to disable loading of the rc file. with a filename as argument it will use it as a configuration file.-w,--slide-show[=on|off]β start the slide show immediately. this way you will not have to start it manually from the menu. main character energy from the jump. π-0,--null[=on|off]β read null-terminated filenames. this can be used with"find -print0"or with"tr '\n' '\0'"when you have a very long list of filenames to pass to gliv. unlikexargs(1)it allows an unlimited number of filenames. unlimited!! π¦-o,--collection[=FILE]β output a collection. with this option, gliv creates a collection from the loaded files and outputs it to stdout or in the specified file.-G,--geometry=GEOMETRYβ initial window geometry. this option can be used to specify the position and dimension of the gliv window. it expects a geometry argument in theXParseGeometry(3X11)format like:640x480+20-30for example.
π COLLECTIONS π
starting with version 1.8, gliv supports a file format called "GLiv collection". it contains an images list and the associated thumbnails β this way, when you load a collection the images menus rebuilding is faster since it does not have to make thumbnails. the glow-up is real. β¨
gliv supports also transparent decompression, so the collections can be compressed in bzip2, gzip or compress(1) provided that you have the corresponding decompressor. yes you need the decompressor, that's not optional, that's just how it is. π
π CONTROLS π
okay this is the good part. the keyboard lore. memorise it, it's giving cheat sheet:
ESC,qβ Quitfβ Full-screen/window+/=/-β Zoom in/in/outn/pβ Next/previous imagePauseβ Start/stop the slide showlβ Reduce the image to the windowMβ Maximize the image to the windowmβ Make the image fit the windowrβ Reset position and sizebβ Toggle display of the menu bariβ Toggle display of the info barsβ Toggle display of the scrollbarsaβ Toggle display of the alpha checkshβ Toggle display of the help boxwβ Toggle display of floating windowsoβ Display the open dialoggβ Display the image selectortβ Display the options dialogdβ Hide the cursoruβ Undoyβ Redocβ Clear the historyDeleteβ Delete the current fileC-upβ Rotate by +90 degreesC-downβ Rotate by -90 degreesC-leftβ Rotate by +0.1 degreeC-rightβ Rotate by -0.1 degreezβ Horizontal flipeβ Vertical flip
and now the mouse, because the mouse is also doing a lot:
the first mouse button and the arrow keys will move the image unless the Control key is pressed. in which case the image will be rotated around the window center. πΈ
the mouse wheel zooms the image, and when you hold its button pressed at the same time it switches to the neighbouring image. multitasking queen. π
you can also zoom by dragging the mouse vertically while holding Shift and the first button.
Space and Backspace act like n and p.
draw a rectangle with the third button and gliv will zoom in it. so satisfying, iykyk. π«Ά
π FILE π
~/.glivrcβ This file is absolutely not mandatory. like, genuinely optional. it's just there if you want it. π
β AUTHOR β
Guillaume Chazarain <guichaz@gmail.com>
See http://guichaz.free.fr/gliv
and that's the whole page, bestie π version 1.9, brought to you by Guillaume Chazarain, and this manual page is for gliv in section 1 of the manual β go forth and view some images, you ate. β¨ππ¦
π¦ where this page comes from
- debian bookworm: gliv 1.9.7-2+b3
- fedora 43: gliv 1.9.7-44.fc43 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- fedora 44: gliv 1.9.7-45.fc44 Β· GPL-2.0-or-later
- ubuntu jammy: gliv 1.9.7-2build2
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms