Looking for good photo browser software - desktop or web

[Chris Green]

Over the past few years I have used a number of different photo
management programs, specifically digikam, then gthumb and now I'm
trying geeqie.

None of them really fulfils my requirements, I want ease of navigation
(using an *existing* file hierarchy where the pictures are stored), a
way to limit the navigation only to my ~/pictures directory and quite
basic picture manipulation facilities (if any).  I want to be able to
show specific (i.e. specified by me) EXIF and/or IPTC information with
the pictures.

My feeling about the ones I have used so far are:-

    digikam - it's overkill for me, pulls in KDE libraries which I
    rather avoid, and the navigation while it's OK isn't ideal.

    gthumb - just about the right level of file management ability etc.
    but I can't eliminate all the extra directories from the file
    browser (to just see the ~/pictures directory) and there are no
    thumbnails available in the browser.

    geeqie - much the same as gthumb really, it's much lighter and
    faster though, which is nice.


Does anyone have any suggestions for other viewers/browsers I might look
at which have good navigation facilities and can show EXIF/IPTC with the
pictures (as opposed to a separate pane/window)?

-- 
Chris Green