nomacs - Image Lounge 🍸

nomacs is a free, open source image viewer, which supports multiple platforms. You can use it for viewing all common image formats including RAW and psd images. nomacs is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 and available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac, and OS/2.

Build nomacs (Windows)

We assume you have an IDE (i.e. Visual Studio), python, git, and Qt installed.

Get all dependencies:

git submodule init
git submodule update

Project folders in 3rd-party will not be empty anymore. Now call:

python scripts/make.py "qtpath/bin"

This will build nomacs into build/nomacs. If you are using Visual Studio, you can then double-click build/nomacs/nomacs.sln. Right-click the nomacs project and choose Set as StartUp Project.

Build individual projects using:

python scripts/make.py "qt/bin" --project quazip,libraw --force

Developer Build

I like having a separate developer build (without submodules) that uses 3rd party libs already compiled. To do so you need to:

git submodule update --init --remote scripts 

# python scripts/make.py "C:\Qt\Qt-5.14.1-installer\5.14.2\msvc2017_64\bin" --lib-path C:\coding\nomacs\nomacs\3rd-party\build
python scripts/make.py "qt/bin" --lib-path "nomacs/3rd-party/build"

If anything did not work

check if you have setup opencv (otherwise uncheck ENABLE_OPENCV)
check if your Qt is set correctly (otherwise set the path to qt_install_dir/qtbase/bin/qmake.exe)
check if your builds proceeded correctly

Build nomacs (Ubuntu)

Get the required packages:

For Ubuntu 21.04 and above:

sudo apt-get install debhelper cdbs qt5-qmake qttools5-dev-tools qtbase5-dev qttools5-dev libqt5svg5-dev qt5-image-formats-plugins libexiv2-dev libraw-dev libopencv-dev cmake libtiff-dev libquazip5-dev libwebp-dev git build-essential lcov libzip-dev

For older Ubuntu versions:

sudo apt-get install debhelper cdbs qt5-qmake qttools5-dev-tools qt5-default qttools5-dev libqt5svg5-dev qt5-image-formats-plugins libexiv2-dev libraw-dev libopencv-dev cmake libtiff-dev libquazip5-dev libwebp-dev git build-essential lcov libzip-dev

Clone the nomacs repository from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/nomacs/nomacs.git

This will by default place the source into ~/nomacs Go to the nomacs/ImageLounge directory and run cmake to get the Makefiles:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ImageLounge/.

Compile nomacs:

make

You will now have a binary (~/nomacs/build/nomacs), which you can test (or use directly). To install it to /usr/local/bin, use:

sudo make install

note that you have to execute

sudo ldconfig

after a successful install.

Install the heif plugin for HEIF support.

For Package Maintainers

Set ENABLE_TRANSLATIONS to true (default: false)
Build all officially supported plugins

Build nomacs (MacOS)

Install Homebrew for easier installation of dependencies. Install required dependencies:

brew install qt5 exiv2 opencv libraw quazip cmake pkg-config

Clone the nomacs repository from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/nomacs/nomacs.git

Go to the nomacs directory and run cmake to get the Makefiles:

cd nomacs
mkdir build
cd build

For Homebrew on Intel models:

# qt5
$ export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/local/include
$ Qt5_DIR=/usr/local/opt/qt5/ cmake -D QT_VERSION_MAJOR=5 --install-prefix /Applications ../ImageLounge/.

# qt6
$ cmake -D QT_VERSION_MAJOR=6 --install-prefix /Applications ../ImageLounge/.

For Homebrew on Apple Silicon models:

$ Qt5_DIR=/opt/homebrew/opt/qt5/ cmake -DQT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE=/opt/homebrew/opt/qt5/bin/qmake --install-prefix /Applications ../ImageLounge/.

Run make:

$ make

You will now have a binary (nomacs.app), which you can test (or use directly). To install it to /Applications, use

sudo make install

If you want to have an independent bundle image (nomacs.dmg) you can create it by using

$ make bundle

If macdeployqt complains about ERROR: Cannot resolve rpath "@rpath/QtGui.framework/Versions/A/QtGui" here is the solution:

$ /usr/local/lib/QtGui.framework/Versions/A
$ install_name_tool -id '@rpath/QtGui.framework/Versions/A/QtGui' QtGui
% otool -L QtGui| head -2
QtGui:
        @rpath/QtGui.framework/Versions/A/QtGui (compatibility version 6.0.0, current version 6.7.0)

Build nomacs (Windows Cross-Compile)

Compiles nomacs for Windows using M Cross Environment (MXE) from a Linux/Unix host.

MXE environment is usually compiled from source, however you may be able to skip this if MXE has packages for your platform:

git clone <mxe url>
cd mxe

# qt5
make MXE_TARGETS='x86_64-w64-mingw32.shared' qtbase qtimageformats qtwinextras opencv quazip tiff exiv2 libraw

# qt6 (quazip-qt6 is unavailable)
make MXE_TARGETS='x86_64-w64-mingw32.shared' qt6-qtbase qt6-qtimageformats qt6-qttools opencv tiff exiv2 libraw

Setup build environment:

export MXE_DIR=~/mxe
export MXE_TARGET=x86_64-w64-mingw32.shared
export PATH="${MXE_DIR}/usr/bin:$PATH"

alias pkg-config=${MXE_TARGET}-pkg-config
alias qmake=${MXE_TARGET}-qmake
alias cmake=${MXE_TARGET}-cmake

Run cmake out-of-tree:

mkdir build-nomacs
cd build-nomacs

cmake -D QT_VERSION_MAJOR=5 -D ENABLE_TRANSLATIONS=ON -D ENABLE_HEIF=ON -D ENABLE_AVIF=ON  \
-DENABLE_JXL=ON -D USE_SYSTEM_QUAZIP=OFF <nomacs-path>/ImageLounge

Compile nomacs:

make -j8
make collect

Run on WINE:

wine nomacs-mingw/nomacs.exe

Run on Windows:

cd C:\
xcopy /DEY <shared-folder>\build-nomacs\nomacs-mingw nomacs
cd nomacs
nomacs.exe

Build nomacs (Windows with MSYS2)

export target=mingw-w64-x86_64

pacman -S $target-qt5-base $target-qt5-svg $target-qt5-winextras $target-qt5-tools \
          $target-libraw $target-libtiff $target-exiv2 $target-opencv $target-cmake $target-gcc

export PATH=/ming64:$PATH

cd <build-dir>

cmake -D QT_MAJOR_VERSION=5 -D ENABLE_TRANSLATIONS=ON -D USE_SYSTEM_QUAZIP=ON <nomacs-dir>/ImageLounge

cmake --build . --parallel 8

Build in Docker

We have created a docker image that best simulates the old travis system (currently it's ubuntu xenial 16.04). To build nomacs in a docker, you have to create the image:

docker build --rm -f "Dockerfile" -t nomacs:latest empty-docker-dir

To deploy nomacs in a docker on your system, you can mount this directory using:

docker run --rm -it -v C:\\coding\\nomacs:/usr/nomacs nomacs:latest

If needed, you can upload the image:

docker login
docker tag nomacs diemmarkus/nomacs
docker push diemmarkus/nomacs:latest

Enable Debug output

To enable Qt debug messages set

cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ...

at the Makefiles generation phase.

Build and run tests

To build tests, install GoogleTest before running the cmake configuration. A check target will be created by default if GoogleTest is present to build the test binaries and execute ctest.

make check

nomacs/nomacs