Qt Flif Plugin
Version: Git Web: http://bit.ly/QtFlifPlugin
While some people keep their home directory (~/) very small, others collect significant amounts of personal files, including images. In LXF205 [HotPicks, p57] we admired the brand new FLIF image format that will eventually replace PNG someday.
The FLIF encoder produces files that are up to 30% smaller than PNG and still lossless. So, if you happen to have lots of PNG (or run a worldwide screenshots database), you can save your disk space by converting all PNGs to FLIF. In the meantime, the FLIF format is still missing in the MIME database that comes with every Linux distro, so you need some third-party tools to view FLIF files and possibly manipulate them.
The Qt Flif Plugin offers a shared library that enables many Qt- based apps (such as Gwenview, Kolourpaint) to read and write FLIF files in the same way that they do with PNG or any other supported format. Compiling the plugin produces the libflif.so file that you should place in /usr/lib64/qt5/ plugins/imageformats. (Note: your prefix may be different from /usr/ lib64.) Don’t forget to place the bundled XML and DESKTOP files in their correct destinations in order for Qt apps to accept the plugin.
Once done, you’ll get correct thumbnails in Dolphin and the ability to edit FLIF files in many applications. FLIF supports animated images as well, although the Qt plugin can only read such files, but not save animations yet. Before we were able to write these words there was an issue with Gwenview16.12 compatibility (only older versions worked with the plugin), but we contacted the Qt FLIF Plugin developer and he was quick to come up with a fix. Alternatively, you can check out another compact image viewer at https://github.com/spillerrec/ imgviewer that has no compatibility problems. Both the viewer and the plugin can be easily compiled using just $ qmake && make within roughly a minute or so.
“Read and write FLIF files in the same way you do with PNG or any other supported format.”