Is it possible to show image in Sublime Text 3 output panel?

Question

I am writing a sublime text 3 plugin. I have an image (PNG format). I would like to load this image into Sublime Text 3 custom output panel, to show it as a preview. Does anyone have idea how to do this or is it even possible?

Answer 1

Seems that the output panel can only render unicode characters, making it impossible to put an image in there (maybe one day).

Alternate solution

As I said in my comment, you can divide the layout and use a tab to show the image, and maybe also a tab to show text if needed. I've made this simple example plugin and two screenshots:

import sublime, sublime_plugin

class Example(sublime_plugin.WindowCommand):
    def run(self):
        """Divide layout"""
        self.window.set_layout({
            "cols": [0.0, 0.4, 1.0],
            "rows": [0.0, 0.6, 1.0],
            "cells": [[0, 0, 2, 1], [0, 1, 1, 2], [1, 1, 2, 2]]
            })

        """Open image in group 1"""
        self.window.focus_group(1)
        self.window.open_file('/home/sergio/Escritorio/images/logo.png')

        """Show output/info in group 2"""
        self.window.focus_group(2)
        v = self.window.new_file()
        self.window.run_command('insert', {'characters': ("Plugin output:\n"
            "-Stackoverflow\n"
            "-is\n"
            "-very\n"
            "-cool\n"
            "-the\n"
            "-best\n"
            "-websites\n"
            "-of\n"
            "-the\n"
            "-world\n")})
        v.show_at_center(0)

        self.window.focus_group(0)

Layout before:

Layout after:

Have in mind that this is a simple example, and it doesn't close the opened tabs, nor restore the layout, etc.