Back in July I started an ambitious new project – next generation of my image viewer with all the main requests from users (Unicode, file browser, 64-bit support) implemented. But of course life intervened and amount of my free time was quite limited for such a major endeavour. So I decided to switch to an easier schedule:
FuturixImager 6.0
Focus: full Unicode support, speed improvements, integration with Windows 7
Schedule: beta version in September, final release in October
This version will have some features from 5.9.3 missing because some third-party libraries I used are not Unicode-compatible.
FuturixImager 6.1
Focus: new file browser, improved editor, new plug-in for raw camera formats
Schedule: beta version in November, final release in December
This version will restore missing features from 5.9.3 (hopefully).
FuturixImager 7.0
Focus: complete 64-bit support, major UI improvements
Schedule: alpha version in December, first beta in February, final release in mid-2010
To natively support 64-bit systems I will need to rewrite roughly 50% of Imager’s source – and since I will be rewriting a lot, I will use this to début major UI changes.
Also I’m working on a custom version of Imager focused on animated GIF support – basically it will be a simplified viewer only for animated GIFs with some additional UI controls specifically for animation. Current support for animated GIFs in Imager 5.9.3 is crap – so I decided to fix that (to some extent). I hope to release this shortly after the final release of Imager 6.
So much to do, so little time! 
