zonViewer Editor's Review

zonViewer is an image viewer and batch converter.

zonViewer is a free Mac OS X image viewer which provides a nice functionality for resizing images. All the software functions can be controlled with your keyboard.

The interface is easy to use and you can customize it's toolbar. The buttons that can be found are: 'first', ' previous', 'next', ' last', 'rotate left', 'rotate right', 'fit', 'fullscreen', 'resize' and 'save'. The 'batch converter' can be found under 'b' from keyboard or menu bar under 'file'. In my test, everything worked perfect. The 'Fullscreen' option is not really full screen, but just a maximized window. The 'Fit' button will resize the image to fit the application window. For more convenient viewing you can rotate the image directly from zonViewer.

zonViewer also includes a resizing tool. You can batch process your files. By "batch" you can rename, resize and convert in 'jpg', 'png', 'bmp', 'gif', 'jpg2000' and 'tiff' file formats. The interface is intuitive, so you won't get lost in options.

In resizing , individual or in 'batch' mode you get the same options. You can chose a new size, resize by percentage, by longest side or just check a standard size. The application will check by default the "preserve aspect ratio" checkbox.

You can not drag and drop or batch process folders, only files. zonViewer has an "open recent" option that doesn't work either, it "forgets" all opened files. If you close zonViewer as a normal application, it will still remain open in the dock-bar and cannot be used. In this case you will have to quit old style.

Pluses: easy to use, stable, lots of features and fast.

Drawbacks / flaws: no slideshow possibility, no preserving the EXIF data, no zoom.

In conclusion: zonViewer has taken a good and well deserved place in image viewers for Mac OS X, beside the fact it's free, it comes with various useful features. You might want to try another free image viewer named JustLooking. For a release candidate zoneViewer promises a lot.

version reviewed: 1.0 b1