Whilst SwiftJPEG can only display one picture at a time, it is possible to drag a group of pictures to SwiftJPEG and have them handled in a sensible manner. This section describes in more detail what happens to groups of pictures.
Normally SwiftJPEG will not show a picture in a Full Screen view when it is loaded. In this case, when you drag a group of pictures to SwiftJPEG it will display the first picture in the group in the Display window on the Desktop. You can then view subsequent pictures with the Next Image item on the Main Menu.
If you are in the middle of looking through a group of pictures in this way and you drag one or more new pictures to SwiftJPEG, the old group will be forgotten and the first of the new group loaded immediately.
Obviously there is not much difference, in this case, between dragging on a group of pictures and using the Next Image menu item or dragging on each picture individually. The important difference comes with Full Screen viewing. Using the General Choices window it is possible to tell SwiftJPEG to show pictures in Full Screen mode as soon as they are loaded.
This makes it possible to do a 'slideshow' display by dragging on a group of pictures. They are shown one by one in Full Screen mode, without returning to the Desktop in between. Should one of the pictures give an error, the slideshow can be resumed by selecting the Next Image menu item again. Turning off the Full Screen option in the General Choices window would allow viewing to continue in the Desktop.
The side effect of this method is that if you accidentally forget to tell SwiftJPEG to display pictures Full Screen as soon as they load, then (unlike in some earlier versions of SwiftJPEG) you just need to turn this option on and then select the Next image option to continue Full Screen, though this will obviously start with the second of your group of images.
It is possible to tell SwiftJPEG to wait a certain amount of time between pictures and then automatically move onto the next one. You can also tell it to repeatedly cycle through a group of pictures until you force it to exit Full Screen view by pressing Escape. If a picture causes certain errors it will not be viewed again if you resume Full Screen viewing (so you don't get the same error over and over). Note that running out of memory does not count as one of the errors where this is true, as you might (for example) free some memory when the error occurs which would allow the picture to be loaded next time round without problems.
If a complete group of pictures is shown Full Screen and SwiftJPEG then returns to the Desktop, the group will then be forgotten about. If you force it to exit in the middle of a group with Escape, the group is remembered in case you want to carry on looking at the pictures. The exception is if SwiftJPEG has been told to repeatedly cycle through the pictures as described above. In this case the group is forgotten about as otherwise you'd always be left with a list of files stored in memory after viewing pictures Full Screen.
When loading a group into a Full Screen view with SwiftJPEG set up to automatically move onto the next picture after a certain time, there are slight changes to the keyboard and mouse operations as described in the Full Screen section. The right-hand mouse button will now pause on the current picture - SwiftJPEG will wait for a key or mouse button to be pressed before continuing (the usual 'special' keys such as Escape function as normal whilst paused). A 'tape deck'-style pause icon flashes briefly in the bottom left of the screen to show this. Using the I key will now also act as a pause function, whilst still showing the picture information. Other operations remain unaffected.
SwiftJPEG accomplishes this handling of groups by storing all the picture names in the group in a Dynamic Area and then loading them 'on demand'. Any potential errors will thus not be generated until the errant picture is accessed. SwiftJPEG does have a limit on how many pictures can be remembered at once, but it shouldn't normally be a problem (around 2,400 files worst-case). However, if there isn't enough free memory to store all the names in a group an appropriate error will be generated and only those pictures with names already in memory will be available.
Note that when loading pictures into Full Screen mode, you may notice a significant delay upon exiting Full Screen mode before the Desktop redraws. The drive indicator light for whatever device you loaded the pictures from, if present, will probably be flashing erratically during this period. So if you've dragged on a large group of pictures and this happens, be patient - so long as the drive light is flashing, you'll know the machine hasn't crashed. For more details see the Problems section.
To create a 'rolling slideshow' of pictures in a specific order, drag the pictures in the order you want them to the Pinboard. Using the General Choices window, set up some delay between pictures, make sure the group is displayed repeatedly, set up fades if you wish, ensure pictures will be shown Full Screen as they load, and finally select all the pictures you put on the Pinboard and drag them all to SwiftJPEG in one go. Then sit back and enjoy the show!