RM8 Image Editor

The latest 8.1.2 Image viewer change is an improvement. However the Image editor seems only to open (or attempt to open) Windows Paint. This is a legacy Windows feature of very limited functionality, which many users are likely not to have activated, and doesn’t do essential things like straightening, cropping or enhancing images.
I would have thought RM should be opening whatever the current Windows App is that is defaulted to open image files.
Alternatively, should users somewhere be able to specify what image editing App the program should use?

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I have set a different default editor for the pictures in my computer settings and RM picks it up fine. OS Windows 11.

I am having the same problem. RM does not pick up my preferred image viewer/editor (Faststone) on my Windows 10 PC.

I am having the same problem. RM does not pick up my default image viewer/editor (Corel PaintShop Pro) on my Windows 10 PC.

Google Windows 10 or 11 assignment of default applications. you should be able to choose your desired installed program over the current default image handler.

I haven’t yet managed to sort out all the particulars, but Windows seems to make a distinction between the program which will open an image file by default and the program which will edit an image file by default. It may seem like a distinction without a difference, but there definitely is a difference. The default “open” program and the default “edit” program for image files on my system are different programs. I didn’t set them up that way. They were set up that way by Windows.

RM is using the default windows “edit” program for image files rather than the default windows “open” program for image files. At first impression, that makes perfect sense because what you are intending to do is actually to edit the file. The problem is that Windows makes it easy to set up the default “open” program for image files. But Windows apparently doesn’t make it easy to set up the default “edit” program for image files.

I have spent several hours trying to solve this little conundrum. There are dozens of sites on the Web that purport to provide the solution. But in my many hours of trying, I have yet to find a single site that actually provides a solution. They say they are providing a solution for the default “edit” program, but they are really providing a solution for the default “open” program. I already have a solution for the default “open” program. I have known how to do that for many, many years. What I don’t have a solution for and what I need to work with RM is a solution for the default “edit” program.

If anybody has a solution, please post it here. But before you post, please test it out and make sure it’s really a solution for the default “edit” program and not a solution for the default “open” program. I suspect the only solution is going to be to run the regedit program to edit one of the Windows Registry keys. I don’t yet know which Registry key it is, but I’m still working on it. And I would rather solve the problem without using regedit because a slip of the finger while running regedit can disable your entire Windows system.

The simplest solution might be for RM to allow the user to specify what installed program to use to edit image files.

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Thanks for that explanation Jerry. I too am fully aware of how to set up default applications and was under the impression that anything to do with opening a jpg file would involve Corel Paintshop Pro. Evidently not. I hope you are successful in solving the conundrum. I will have a go myself too.

Registry changes appear to be the only way and not discussed very much. I found this but have not tried it - could be outdated:

My system offers:
Open (sometimes)
Open (not bolded, sometimes)
Open with appname (sometimes)
Open with … (sometimes)
Edit (sometimes, notably on image files andthat launches Paint)
Edit with appname (sometimes)
Edit with … (sometimes)

The “with appname” options are the result of the app itself having added them to Windows Explorer.

PDF files are not being opened by anything from Edit Media on my system, despite there being an association with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. I have several other PDF apps with integrations in Explorer.

The ‘edit’ key will do nothing on a PDF file because Windows does not have a default PDF editor, or any means of specifying one. The ‘Open’ key will open it in whatever your default PDF viewer is, eg Edge or Acrobat Reader. The extent to which you can ‘edit’ a PDF is somewhat limited, although there are programs which can convert them to another format like JPG, or split or combine them. To be honest, this is probably best done outside of RM.

Have not tried this yet, but it looks promising. Change Edit default from Paint to something else

@TomH @thejerrybryan Both of your replies are in effect the same option, to edit the same registry key. I have edited the registry as per the instructions to my preferred program IrfanView and it works. RM8 now opens IrfanView when selecting the Edit media item option on an image.

The Registry Edit worked for me, JPG images now open for Edit in IrfanView.

The Registry Edit worked for me too, JPG images now open for Edit in Corel Paintshop Pro

I agree that Registry changes are probably the only way to change this, as things stand. However they are not something large numbers of users will be comfortable with doing, let alone should be encouraged to do.

The ‘simple’ solution is for RM8 to ‘open’ rather than ‘edit’ the OS’s default image/photos app, which users can then easily set to meet their own preferences. The default Windows ‘Photos’ app has basic editing functionality, as do many others. You don’t need a full blown Photoshop type package to straighten, crop or enhance the sort of images we are using in a genealogy program.

So in RM8, the ‘View’ (magnifying glass) button would open the internal viewer, the ‘Edit’ button the external app. In the case of PDF’s and other file types where there is no internal viewer, both buttons would obviously have the same function.

Yes I do! I don’t know what sort of images you are using but I regularly enhance images, especially old registers that date back to the 1500s. It is amazing what you can see with a bit of sharpening and other enhancement techniques that my editor offers.

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Perhaps I should re-phrase. You don’t necessarily need the bells and whistles of a full blown package to straighten, crop and apply simple image enhancement to make downloaded images more legible. The default ones like Windows Photos can do these. Windows Paint can crop but not much else. I have always used the free Picasa program, now sadly no longer supported by Google, which loads more or less instantly and does the job quickly and efficiently. Each to their own.

The point is that it is, and should be, your choice as a user what you use, and it should NOT be necessary to tinker around with Registry keys to do it.

I think we are all on the same page. This is just a workaround for a half-baked feature (the Edit Media button).

I tend to think the best solution is three icons instead of two. Icon #1 would view the file using RM’s built-in opener. Icon #2 would open the file using the Windows default opener. Icon #3 would edit the file using the Windows default editor.

Under these circumstances, I would probably use Icon #2 about 100% of the time. I would never view the file using RM’s internal viewer because I simply prefer Irfanview so much over RM’s viewer. And I would never edit the file from within RM because I do all my editing from outside of RM before ever linking the file into RM in the first place. But my preferred Icon #2 doesn’t presently exist. What presently exists are Icon #1 and Icon #3. I can turn Icon #3 into Icon #2 by changing the requisite Windows registry key.

It’s unfortunate that Windows makes the default opener app so easy to manage and the default editor app so hard to manage. I agree that changing registry keys is not something that most users can manage nor is it something that that RM should encourage. It’s far too dangerous. That’s why I think there should be three icons in RM rather than two. Users who wish to use Irfanview or anything not named Paint just to view a file from outside of RM shouldn’t have to mess around with registry keys.

I too edit downloaded document files but find a simple image manager like Preview on the mac is sufficient to crop and combine pdfs. If a file is really bad or tilted then converting to a jpg temporarily will let a basic photo editor like Photos spruce it up.

It is unfortunate that RM8 opens jpgs in it’s own poor viewer and does not handle non-jpgs well.