Gwenview has a few features which are available in both Browse, View, and Full Screen view. Gwenview has the capability to do basic alteration of your images.

These actions are also available on the Operations tab of the sidebar.

If you have edited one or more images a bar with additional actions is displayed at the top of the image. You can undo or redo your changes, go to the previous or next modified image and there are three options to save the changed images.

When in Browse Mode, you can easily navigate through your files and folders. The preview window shows thumbnails of the images in the current folder, as well as subfolders.

Moving the mouse over an image shows buttons to select or rotate the image as well as a button to enter Fullscreen Mode. Modified images are indicated by an icon down right, click it to save the changed image. Clicking on an image takes you into View Mode. You may select multiple images and switch to View Mode to view them side-by-side.

The slider at the bottom right allows you to change the size of the images. You can also filter the images by filename, date, tag or rating using the box on the lower left. The toolbar appears in both Browse mode as well as View mode and contains the most commonly used actions.

View Mode displays full-size images. The same sidebar available in Browse Mode is displayed on the left. At the bottom, there is the Thumbnail Bar, which allows you to scroll through the images in the current folder. The Thumbnail Bar can be minimized by clicking on the Thumbnail Bar button. Clicking again will restore it. To change the size of the thumbnails move the splitter with the left mouse button.

View Mode supports viewing multiple images side-by-side. You may select multiple images in Browse Mode before switching to View Mode, or you may click the + button that appears when hovering over images in the Thumbnail Bar to add a pane displaying that image. A - will then appear that will permit you to remove its pane.

When multiple images are displayed, a small toolbar appears below each image that permits you to delete the image or remove its pane. You may perform zoom operations independently for each image, or synchronize them. Toggle this by checking the Synchronize to the left of the zoom slider or by pressing Ctrl+Y. You can switch images by clicking on their pane, or using your keyboard. To switch to the image on the right, press Tab. To switch to the image on the left, press Shift+Tab.

The slider at the bottom right controls the zoom of the image. The Fit, Fill and 100% buttons are next to the zoom slider and are three preset zoom levels. The Fit button zooms the current image to fit the size of the window, the Fill button zooms the image to fill the window by fitting width or height and the 100% button zooms the image to the actual pixel size. The shortcut F switches to fit mode.

When an image is in zoom-to-fit mode, you can go to the previous and next image with the arrow keys. When you zoom in, arrow keys are used to scroll the image. This is very similar to the behavior provided by phones or digital cameras.

When an image is zoomed in, a bird-eye view appears and lets you scroll the image using the mouse and the arrow keys. The bird-eye view automatically hides itself after a short delay, showing back only while zooming or scrolling.

You can define what happens when going to image B after having zoomed in on an area of image A using the options in the Zoom mode group on the Image View page of the Gwenview configuration window which can be reached using the Settings → Configure Gwenview....

The following additional image operations are available only in View Mode:

Access Full Screen by pressing the Full Screen button on the toolbar, or by View → Full Screen Mode (Ctrl+Shift+F).

To leave this mode press the Esc key.

Browse Mode Full Screen

In Browse Mode you can switch to fullscreen also by clicking on the button that appears when you move the mouse over the thumbnails.

Going fullscreen while browsing gives you a more immersive experience while you go through your pictures. It is quite nice on your regular computer, but makes even more sense when you connect your laptop to the big TV in the living room to show pictures to your guests.

View Mode Full Screen

The full screen View Mode shows a slideshow of your images. Access Full Screen Mode by clicking on the button that appears when you move the mouse over the thumbnails in Browse Mode, by pressing the Full Screen button on the taskbar.

The top bar will hide itself automatically; to show it simply move the mouse to the top of the screen. If the mouse cursor is over the top bar, it will not autohide. Most of the buttons on the bar are the same as the ones on the toolbar in Browse or View Modes, except for the Exit Full Screen Mode button which returns you to the Gwenview window, the Pause/Resume Slideshow button, and the Configure Full Screen Mode button which shows a small settings dialog that allows you to easily and quickly configure the slideshow. The slideshow controls there are:

• The Interval slider controls how long Gwenview will show an image before it move to the next one.

• If the Loop check box is checked, when the end of the slideshow is reached, it will continue from the beginning instead of stopping.

• If the Random check box is checked, instead of progressing through the folder alphabetically, images will be shown in random order.

• Select Image Information to Display allows you to define what metadata is displayed under the buttons on the toolbar.

• If the Show thumbnails check box is checked, thumbnails for all images in the current folder will be displayed to the right of the toolbar.

• The Height slider changes the size of the thumbnails displayed.

If enabled, an area that shows you the other images in the current folder will be shown on the top bar. Clicking on one will display it.

The sidebar on the left is available in the Browse and View modes, but does not appear by default in Browse Mode. Its appearance can be toggled using View → Sidebar (F4) or using the ▮← / ▮→ button at the left side of the statusbar. When clicked it collapses or expands the sidebar. The sidebar contains several tabs:

Gwenview comes with a range of keyboard shortcuts, all of which can be viewed and remapped by selecting Settings → Configure Shortcuts.... Note that in the Files and Folders windows, all the normal KDE shortcuts are functional, unless otherwise remapped.

A few of the most useful default bindings are:

Some notes on hidden Gwenview options can be found on this page.