2 Useful Quick Look Generators
One of the most talked about and useful aspects of Leopard (Apple's 10.5 version of OS X) is without a doubt it's Quick Look functionality. This feature has been blogged to death because it's just that useful - however there are several glaring problems with Quick Look. If you try and Quick Look at a disk image (dmg, img, cd, Toast...), compressed file (zip, bzip, bz2, Stuffit...) or folder the result is less than useful, to say the least:
Don't get me wrong, Apple supports a very large set of file formats and people and companies are bringing out new generators for other file formats all the time, especially for unique image formats or text file formatting , and Elgato and other companies seem to be adding Quick Look generators as they go, but have you tried to Quick Look a compound object - like a folder or a Stuffit file?
Luckily for us the Quick Look system supports user/developer extensions via "Generators". For those that are inclined Apple have provided a Quick Look Programming Guide and a Quick Look Framework Reference so you can whip up your own Generators. For the rest of you - we are lucky to have XDD (website / English) who has created 2 very useful generators which start to address Quick Look's issues... So far his Folder and ZIP generators are working flawlessly and they're even modifiable if you want to play around with the HTML used to format the Quick Look view.
Hopefully his work will promote owners of proprietary file formats (uuhumm Stuffit ) to provide similar generators...
...uncomfortable silence...Once you've downloaded the generators you can install them in the System Library or your user Library - until such time as you're completely sure they aren't going to give you any grief I'd suggest installing them in your User Library, as shown below:
Unless you've already added some user generators you will need to create the "Quick Look" folder inside your Library folder (hint open the Library folder then Right-Click inside it).
When you've installed these 2 Quick Look generators (or any others for that matter) you must restart the Finder, the quickest way to do this is the Option-Right click trick I mentioned the other day. The next time you Quick Look a folder or ZIP file it will something look like this:
Quick Look Folders
Quick Look ZIP Files
Oh...
And if you've read to this point and you're pining for Leopards Quick Look goodness, then may I suggest you upgrade now... you can still get the free shipping and $20.00 off from Amazon and help me out!
If at this point you're cursing me for being an insensitive oaf who doesn't realise what it's like to be on Leopards "Not Supported" list - then all I can say is you really really should upgrade!
