An image viewer (one picture, not for browsing a whole folder of same) that reads and displays the data in the JPEG Comment header? I started my home computing experience (hate to call it a "career") in legacy Mac OS, and as far back as 1996, JPEGView, a single-image viewer, read in and displayed the information in this header. More recently, IrfanView in Windows has kept up its support for displaying this information. Likewise XnView (including Pierre's ever-improving MP version) has this capability.

So why in Linux do we have to "go abroad" to get this info displayed in a one-picture-at-a-time viewer? I appreciate Viewnior being able to show captions/descriptions in its "Properties" window, but captions aren't comments. Is JPEG so dead as a format that no Linux developer cares to support 'comments' without obfuscation?

I'll leave these questions for someone with more familiarity with the GNU development "landscape" than I have to answer.

Carver

I'm not sure what you mean, do these programs display the metadata in the display window with the image or such? I know Eye Of MATE will show you the metadata if you go to file->properties but is that not automatic enough?

Not JPEG comments. XMP-exif:UserComments, and that only in the "Details" tab. "Description" in the "Metadata" tab is invariably read in from XMP-dc: Description. (I'm using the old Exiftool tag names here.)

Of all the viewers I've so far used in Linux, I'd expect Viewnior to imitate the legacy Mac JPEGView, but it too reads descriptions from the same source as EOG/EOM. Which is why I asked the question (paraphrased), "Is JPEG that dead?"

Carver

Maybe you need Geeqie; https://sourceforge.net/projects/geeqie/

exiftool imagemagic are a few tools to get, and place info off/on the image

I have both and use them frequently. I was looking for a low(ish)-profile GUI app that read and displayed JPEG comments more than anything.

@seventh7: I'll get it, but I've been having trouble with compile-make-make-install lately, so ultimately I may have to pass or use the Winz version in WINE.

Carver

that was my first thought too.

i understand geeqie is a little more than a "single image viewer", but it's still pretty lightweight (and can be used to open the image directly, without any sidebars and such).

apart from that, there's about a hundred different image viewers for linux.
i'm sure more than one would fit your bill.

roll up your sleeves, install a dozen, read the docs... and tell us which one fits the bill best (not worst)!