Sticky Image Manager

This is an application that allows you to manage and launch multiple instances of a Viewer. It is written in Java 25 and uses JavaFX for the UI.

It is designed to add some ambience to your desktop (if you have the available screen space).

Features:

• Allows individual image viewers to be resized and repositioned as desired
• Remembers positions, images, and sizes so they can be restored upon the next launch
• Supports EXIF rotation
• Stores recent images in a list for easy access
• Remembers the last directory when browsing for an image in the viewer's file dialog
• Supports GIF animations

It consists of two parts:

1. Sticky Image Manager: A simple application that allows you to manage and launch multiple instances of a Viewer.

Sticky Image Manager:

1. Sticky Image Viewer: A simple application that allows you to view images and videos.

Empty Viewer (right-click to bring up context menu to allow loading / closing image):

It supports EXIF rotation if present.

You can resize images if needed by dragging a corner or a side. It will maintain the aspect ratio of the image.

Actions menu

• Launch: Starts the configured number of viewer windows based on the current configuration.
• Kill: Closes all launched viewer windows.
• Reset: Moves all currently open viewer windows to the manager window's current position on screen, preserving their sizes and content. Use this if a viewer appears offscreen after launch.

Drag and Drop

• You can drag an image file from your OS (Explorer/Finder/Nautilus) directly onto a viewer to load it.
• Supported formats: PNG, JPG/JPEG, GIF, BMP.
• The viewer reuses its existing window (no reset), so custom move/resize remains active.
• The last-used directory is updated on successful drop and is remembered by the File Open dialog.

Building

1. Install JDK 25 (GraalVM JDK 25+37.1 has been confirmed to work) and Maven.

2. Make sure your JAVA_HOME is set in justfile.

   export JAVA_HOME := /path/to/your/jdk

3. Install Just if you don't have it already.

4. In the project root, run:

   just build

Running

just run

System Requirements

• Java Runtime, currently tested with Java 25 (GraalVM-25+37.1)
• Maven
• OS: Windows, Linux, MacOS
• Just CLI tool (for building and running)

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Roadmap

• Support movement and resizing in undecorated mode
• Remove decorated mode once functionality has been confirmed in undecorated mode
• Improve resizing logic so no filling is needed
• Fix EXIF rotation issues
• Add drag-and-drop support
• Add support for multiple images per viewer (slideshow)
• Add support for video files
• Add support for image transitions
• Add support for image effects (grayscale, sepia, etc.)
• Find replacement for metadata-extractor, as this currently results in a "required filename-based automodules" warning during the build
• Fix other build warnings such as sun.misc.Unsafe::allocateMemory
• Create release build with jlink
• Create installer for Windows, MacOS, and Linux
• Add more documentation