sxiv - ArchWiki

# sxiv

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sxiv , Simple X Image Viewer is a lightweight and scriptable image viewer written in C.

## Installation

Install sxiv, which is available in the official repositories.

## Assigning keyboard shortcuts to sxiv

sxiv supports external key events. First you have to press `Ctrl-x` to send the next key to the external key-handler. The external key-handler requires an executable file `~/.config/sxiv/exec/key-handler` and passes the key combination pressed via argument as well the names of the currently marked images as stdin (or, if none are marked, the currently selected image).

In this example, we will add the bindings `Ctrl+d` to execute `mv filename ~/.trash`, `Ctrl+c` to copy the current images' names to the clipboard with xclip, and `Ctrl+w` to set the current wallpaper with nitrogen. Obviously, some commands may only make sense with a single image as an argument, so you may want to revise this to handle cases when those are passed more than one.

    ~/.config/sxiv/exec/key-handler

    #!/bin/sh
    while read file
    do
            case "$1" in
            "C-d")
                    mv "$file" ~/.trash ;;
            "C-r")
                    convert -rotate 90 "$file" "$file" ;;
            "C-c")
                    echo -n "$file" | xclip -selection clipboard ;;
            "C-w")
                    nitrogen --save --set-zoom-fill "$file" ;;
            esac
    done

Be sure to mark the script as executable

    $ chmod +x ~/.config/sxiv/exec/key-handler

Create `.trash` folder if it does not exist:

    $ mkdir ~/.trash

Tip: You may want to use a standards-compliant trashcan (like trash-cli or bashtrashAUR) rather than `mv "$2" ~/.trash`.

## Tips and tricks

### Browse through images in directory after opening a single file

Place this script

    in /usr/local/bin and call it like this:
    $ scriptname a_single_image.jpg

Alternatively you can also install the script as a package from the AUR: sxiv-rifleAUR.

As indicated in the comments of the script, it may be used to have this behavior when opening images from within ranger.

### Showing the image size in the status bar

Place the following executable script in `~/.config/sxiv/exec/image-info` and make sure that you have the exiv2 package installed:

    ~/.config/sxiv/exec/image-info

    #!/bin/sh

    # Example for ~/.config/sxiv/exec/image-info
    # Called by sxiv(1) whenever an image gets loaded,
    # with the name of the image file as its first argument.
    # The output is displayed in sxiv's status bar.

    s=" | " # field separator

    filename=$(basename "$1")
    filesize=$(du -Hh "$1" | cut -f 1)

    geometry=$(identify -format '%wx%h' "$1[0]")

    tags=$(exiv2 -q pr -pi "$1" | awk '$1~"Keywords" { printf("%s,", $4); }')
    tags=${tags%,}

    echo "${filesize}${s}${geometry}${tags:+$s}${tags}${s}${filename}"

## See also

- Arch Linux forum thread.
- Sxiv for keyboard layout bépo (keyboard layout in the spirit of Dvorak for french speakers) : Sxiv bépo.

Category:

- Image manipulation