Zoomer -- Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Why my screen saver is not started while the Zoomer shows slides?
A. This is designed so, for your convenience.

Q. Why there are no main menu in the Zoomer?
A. It requires some additional place on screen, which is very necessary for image view. All commands are still easy accessible with popup menus, toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts.

Q. Why it is not multi-language and only English language is provided?
A. Multi-language option is planned for future.

Q. Why the help system is not provided in some standard form like WinHelp or HtmlHelp and your own help system is used?
A. Standard help system requires more size for the distributive, especially because all the images used in the documentation should be stored separately from the application. In the Zoomer's custom help system, most of images are extracted from the executable itself or generated on fly. Another reason is that HtmlHelp is not working in some Windows versions (like Windows 95 or NT4 w/o Explorer4).

Q. Why system standard directory selection dialog is not used? I can not select network folder from yours dialog. If the Zoomer can not handle image files located in the network shared folders? If I created new subdirectory it is not listed there, how to select it?
A. Standard system directory selection dialog is very slow and especially because of network folders requiring a long time to open and scan it. Also, it re-scans directories each time it is called and have some bugs which sometimes prevent it from selecting newly created folders.
Zoomer's custom directory selection dialog is fast but can not list network folders. To open files or folders from the network, explore it with your file manager (e.g. Microsoft Explorer) and drag desired file or folder to the Zoomer main window. This dialog caches scanned directories, so it does not rescan each time when called. But closing parent node in the tree and opening it again you can force it to rescan its child subfolders and make newly created directories available for selecting it.

Q. Why XP themes are not used and only your own (single) skin provided?
A. This is the most effective way to provide identical application looking in different Windows versions, independent from themes turned on or off or unavailable.

Q. Why the background of thumbnails is not changed immediately when another background color is selected?
A. This is designed so for efficiency. If you really want to change background of thumbnails, refresh file list (F5).

Q. My XXXXXXXX Anti-virus software found that your app is infected with the virus / trojan YYYYYYYYYY. Can you fix it?
A. I can not fix your XXXXXXXX Anti-virus software, sorry. The Zoomer is not infected anyway.

Q. When I press [Register] button, it says that there are no e-mail system installed. My computer is not connected to the Internet. What I have to do to get a registration?
A. Send me a file keyfile.dat found in the directory where the Zoomer is installed (attach it to the e-mail, either as is, or better, first archiving it to the ZIP). You may send me the e-mail from any computer connected to the Internet, using any e-mail agent (but please provide correct sender e-mail address, used while making a payment, or type it in the mail body). Note: this file is created when Options and About dialog is opened. You should not remove this file from the disk.

Q. I want to use the Zoomer in the Internet cafe running it from my flash drive. Can I register it (I am working on different workstations each time)?
A. No. In such case you have to use it as not registered and wait for nag-screen each time it appear.

Q. Which files are necessary to be copied to provide the Zoomer working from the removable device?
A. Only Zoomer.exe is actually necessary as minimal configuration. Take a note that correct icons for file associations will appear only if your removable disk is not write-protected and the Zoomer could create a subfolder AssocIcons\ in its home directory. Either, you can copy there existing such subfolder

Q. When I use Move-to-folders feature, why it never asks me to overwrite existing files with the same name?
A. If a file named exactly as moving or copying is found in the target directory, the Zoomer either saves it automatically renaming it (adding or changing digits at the end of the file name) or skips saving if the storing file is identical to the matching one.

Q. How to select several images in a file list?
A. There are no way to do it in this version, still the Zoomer was designed just (and mainly) as an image viewer and all other functions are miscellaneous.

Q. When I use Save As... popup menu item, an image is saved distorted (flattened vertically). Why and what to do?
A.
This occur because your display was in a distorted resolution and an option to fix aspect ratio was turned on. When you were saving the image, you saw it in a normal aspect ratio, because it was fixed by the Zoomer. But while fixing the image, the Zoomer internally was distorting it flattening it vertically, and while saving this flattened version of the image was used. To avoid such problems, you can turn off "Square pixels" option in the View area popup menu temporarily.

Q. When "Square pixels" option is on, image scrolling (Fit window is off) seems to be slow and not so smooth. Why?
A. If the aspect ratio actually is fixed to correct display resolution distortion,
it is not possible by technical reason to use native window scrolling operation, which uses hardware capabilities improving video operations. This is because in each window position part of the image it must be created from the original image from its initial picture, so instead of scrolling most of the window area and updating only scrolled in rectangles, the Zoomer have to repaint entire window each time, which is certainly slower.