software.html

---
title: FLIF - Software
group: menu
menu_title: Software
---
{% include header.html %}


    <h1 id="flif-software"><a href="/index.html">FLIF</a> Software</h1>

    <p>FLIF is still very young. As the format matures we expect support for it to grow in many areas.
       On this page, we give an overview of available FLIF plugins, applications, tools,
       and libraries.</p>

    <p><strong>NOTE:</strong> Many items listed below do not have FLIF support yet, we would love for them to though. If you have
       an interest in working on one of these, <a href="http://gitter.im/FLIF-Hub/FLIF">let us know</a>!</p>


    <h2 id="reference">Reference implementation</h2>

    <p>The reference implementation of FLIF consists of a command line tool called <code>flif</code> and a shared library called <code>libflif</code>.
    They are licensed under the LGPLv3+.
    There is also a decoder-only library called <code>libflif_dec</code>, which is licensed under the more permissive Apache 2.0 license.
    </p>
    <ul>
        <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF">FLIF reference implementation</a></strong> - encoder, decoder (command-line tool)</li>
    </ul>


    <h2 id="browsers">Browsers</h2>

    <p>Currently there are no browsers that have native FLIF support. We hope for this to change at some point,
        but browser developers are understandably hesitant to support new image formats.
        There is however a javascript based implementation:</p>

    <ul>
        <li><strong><a href="https://uprootlabs.github.io/poly-flif">Poly-FLIF</a></strong> - A Polyfill for browsers that don't
            natively support FLIF.</li>
    </ul>

    <p>If you want to encourage browser developers to add FLIF support, maybe these pointers might help:</p>

    <ul>
        <li><a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1240692"><strong>Mozilla</strong>: BugZilla Bug 1240692 - (FLIF) Implement support for Free Lossless Image Format (FLIF)</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=539120"><strong>Chromium</strong>: Issue 539120 – Feature-Request: FLIF-Support</a></li>
    </ul>


    <h2 id="graphics-software">Graphics Software</h2>

    <ul>
        <li><strong><a href="http://www.imagemagick.org/">ImageMagick</a></strong> supports FLIF since versions 6.9.4-5 and 7.0.1-7.</li>
        <li><strong><a href="http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/">ExifTool</a></strong> supports FLIF since version 10.31.</li>
        <li><strong>Photoshop</strong> - Not supported natively yet, no FLIF plugins currently exist.</li>
        <li><strong>Krita</strong> - Not supported natively yet, no FLIF plugins currently exist.</li>
        <li><strong>GIMP</strong> - Not supported natively yet, no FLIF plugins currently exist.</li>
    </ul>


    <h2 id="image-viewers">Image Viewers</h2>

    <ul>
        <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/peirick/FlifWICCodec">FLIF Windows Codec</a></strong> - This plugin allows to
        decode and encode FLIF files in Windows aplications using the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) API. That allows e.g.,
        to see the files in Windows PhotoViewer and Windows Explorer.
        (similar project, decode only: <a href="https://github.com/fherzog2/flif_windows_plugin">FLIF Windows Plugin</a>)</li>
        <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/spillerrec/qt-flif-plugin">QT FLIF Plugin</a></strong> - A plugin for QT4 and QT5
            (used by KDE).</li>
        <li><strong><a href="https://sveinbjorn.org/phew">Phew</a></strong> - Open-source FLIF image viewer and QuickLook plugin for macOS</li>
        <li><strong>viewer</strong> - The FLIF project has a basic viewer.exe application that displays .flif images natively. You
            will need to <a href="https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF#build-instructions">download and build</a> the source code to
            run it. Will run on Windows, OSX, and GNU/Linux.</li>
        <li><strong><a href="https://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm">IrfanView</a></strong> - Supports FLIF since version 4.52.</li>
        <li><strong><a href="http://www.xnview.com/">XnView</a></strong> - Supports FLIF since version 2.36</li>
        <li><strong>FastStone Image Viewer</strong> - Not supported natively yet, no FLIF plugins currently exist.</li>
        <li><strong>Windows Picture and Fax Viewer</strong> - Not supported natively yet, no FLIF plugins currently exist.
            Interested in making this? <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee719883(v=vs.85).aspx">Look
            here</a>.</li>
        <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/lehitoskin/ivy">Ivy, the Taggable Image Viewer</a></strong> - An image viewer that supports FLIF via <a href="https://github.com/lehitoskin/riff">riff</a></li>
    </ul>


    <h2 id="image-converters">Image Converters</h2>

    <ul>
        <li><strong><a href="http://flif.info/UGUI_FLIF">UGUI: FLIF</a></strong> - An easy to use GUI program that lets you
            convert from PNG/PAM/PNM to FLIF (and convert back). It will display a preview of FLIF's. Version 3.5 uses the October
            2015 Beta version of FLIF and will not be compatible with newer versions.</li>
        <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/FLIF-hub/UGUI_FLIF/releases/download/v0.3.5/FLIF_0.1_2015-10-15.zip">flif native
            executable</a></strong> - This is a build of the October 2015 Beta version of flif.exe for Windows, OSX, and Ubuntu. It
            is a Command Line Interface with many switches. FLIF files produced with it will not be compatible with newer
            versions.</li>
    </ul>


    <h2 id="image-optimization">Image Optimization</h2>

    <ul>
        <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/FLIF-hub/flifcrush">flifcrush</a></strong> - An automated python script that attempts
        multiple different ways of converting an image to FLIF to find the way that produces the smallest filesize.</li>
    </ul>

</body>
</html>