BeeRef — A Simple Reference Image Viewer

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BeeRef <https://beeref.org>_ lets you quickly arrange your reference images and view them while you create. Its minimal interface is designed not to get in the way of your creative process.

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.. image:: https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/blob/main/images/screenshot.png

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Installation

Stable Release

Get the file for your operating system (Windows, Linux, macOS) from the `latest release <https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/releases>`_. The different Linux versions are built on different versions of Ubuntu. The should work on other distros as well, but you might have to try which one works.

**Linux users** need to give the file executable rights before running it. Optional: If you want to have BeeRef appear in the app menu, save the desktop file from the `release section <https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/releases>`_ in ``~/.local/share/applications``, save the `logo <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rbreu/beeref/main/beeref/assets/logo.png>`_, and adjust the path names in the desktop file to match the location of your BeeRef installation.

**MacOS X users**, look at `detailed instructions <https://beeref.org/macosx-run.html>`_ if you have problems running BeeRef.

Follow further releases via the `atom feed <https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/releases.atom>`_.

Development Version

To get the current development version, you need to have a working Python 3 environment. Run the following command to install the development version::

pip install git+https://github.com/rbreu/beeref.git

Then run beeref or beeref filename.bee.

Features

• Move, scale, rotate, crop and flip images
• Mass-scale images to the same width, height or size
• Mass-arrange images vertically, horizontally or for optimal usage of space
• Add text notes
• Enable always-on-top-mode and disable the title bar to let the BeeRef window unobtrusively float above your art program:

.. image:: https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/blob/main/images/screenshot.png

Regarding the bee file format

All images are embedded into the bee file as PNG or JPG. The bee file format is a sqlite database inside which the images are stored in an sqlar table—meaning they can be extracted with the `sqlite command line program <https://www.sqlite.org/cli.html>`_::

  sqlite3 myfile.bee -Axv

Options for exporting from inside BeeRef are planned, but the above always works independently of BeeRef.

Troubleshooting
---------------

You can access the log output via *Help -> Show Debug Log*. In case BeeRef doesn't start at all, you can find the log file here:

Windows:

  C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\BeeRef\BeeRef.log

Linux and MacOS:

  /home/USERNAME/.config/BeeRef/BeeRef.log

Notes for developers
--------------------

BeeRef is written in Python and PyQt6. For more info, see `CONTRIBUTING.rst <https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.rst>`_.