It is a joy to come across an application that works so well and combines the features and functionalities of several applications that it is difficult to not want to tell everybody about it.
The application I am referring to, is called KLook. That is “look” prefixed with a “K.” If you have not played with the beta edition of ROSA Desktop 2012, you probably have no idea what this is all about. And if you are not familiar with ROSA Desktop, it is a Linux distribution derived from Mandriva Desktop. Like Chakra, it is solely uses the K Desktop Environment.
KLook is the latest application that the developers have written for the distribution. It is an attempt, and a very good one at that, to replicate the features of a similar application on Mac OS X in a Linux desktop. What KLook does, is give you the ability to view images, text files (.txt), listen to audio and play video files from one application in a slideshow fashion. Another application coded for ROSA Desktop, is ROMP. Read about it at ROMP: Media player with built-in desktop recorder.
Currently, it can be used to view images in png and jpg formats, listen to audio and video files supported by Phonon, and view text files. Support for reading PDF files is just around the corner. Starting KLook is pretty simple. Just select the files you want to view or play and press the Space bar on the keyboard.
KLook can play audio files as well as any dedicated audio player. Here, it is shown playing an MP3 file.
And it can handle video files just as well. Here, it is shown playing a video in .wmv format.
Aside from being able play audio and video files, KLook is also the smoothest image viewer I have come across in Linux. Note that KLook also gives you the option of opening a file you are viewing or playing in the dedicated player for the file’s format installed on the system. Below is a shot of KLook showing an image.
Being used to view a text file.
You can switch to thumbnail view by clicking a button on the top bar. You can also switch to fullscreen mode.
KLook has made itself to the top of my favorite desktop applications, right up there with Stackfolder, Takeoff Launcher, Linux Deepin‘s Scroft and GNOME 3.4’s built-in desktop recorder. I think it should be on yours too. The developer(s) have made the source code available, so if you have coding skills, you can port it to your distribution. KLook was announced in this post Denis Koryavov, the head of ROSA’s UI development and a link to source code in this.
