PhotoQt v2.5 - 10 years of PhotoQt

Published: 5th of January, 2022

It has been more than 10 years since the very first release of PhotoQt. What better way to celebrate this anniversary (albeit a little late) with a new release packed with many exciting new features and improvements.

Some of the highlights of this release include:

Chromecast support: Using the Python library pychromecast, PhotoQt can stream any image directly to your Chromecast device. Note that this only mirrors the actual image, any zooming/rotation/etc. will not update the streamed image.
Thread handling: PhotoQt makes extensive use of threads to improve loading thumbnail images. This has caused some issues before, for example, it could cause PhotoQt to crash when exited too quickly. This new release ships a much better way to handle the threads that should fix all previous issues.
Default shortcut for Escape: The default shortcut for the Escape key up until now was to close any sub-window, or (if the main image is shown) to close PhotoQt. From now, when the main image is visible then the default shortcut for Escape is to go back to the file dialog to keep browsing images. Note that this does only apply to fresh installs, no existing shortcuts will be changed.
Command line options: PhotoQt has gained a new-and-improved handling of command line options, including some new command line options to check and/or reset the configuration, among other things.
Windows installer signature: Since late December, I now have the ability to cryptographically sign the Windows installer. Note, that this does not mean that the Microsoft SmartScreen wont appear anymore, though over time this could very well happen. In the meantime, you can verify the authenticity of the installer by the author name in the SmartScreen prompt.

As usual, these are just some of the highlights, there have been plenty of more changes and bug fixes. You can find a few more in the Changelog.

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.
Support me with a donation to show your appreciation of all the time I spend developing/maintaining PhotoQt.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas