Quick look plugins windows

QuickLook brings macOS like feature on Windows 10/8/7 that enables users to get a very quick preview of file contents by pressing the Spacebar. It is an open source tool.

Whatever may our work be, on our computers, we all need to deal with files at the end of the day. Not everybody has the habit of organizing files and in such cases, it can be difficult to send or work with the appropriate files, while in a hurry. When files are not organized properly, we end up sending or working with the wrong files and to prevent that, the best option is to open and review the files before sending or staring to work with them. If you deal with the problem every single day, you can understand how inconvenient it is, to open the individual files every time.

On Windows computers, there is a solution. With the preview pane, you can peep into some files on the right side of the explorer window to make sure it is the appropriate file for your needs. But the default preview pane on Windows isn’t a comprehensive solution for the problem. It works with a handful of file formats, and if you mainly work with documents, spreadsheets, this isn’t a solution for you at all. The worst part though is something different. If you have a slow computer, and you click on a big file, your system might not respond for a few seconds, which is just too frustrating. The problem is more acute, especially at the time of accessing files on mapped or network drives.

But if you are using Windows 10, there is a solution. I will discuss that here. So let’s get started with the solution.

Step 1: Download QuickLook for Windows 10

Open the Microsoft Store on your Windows 10 computer, and search for QuickLook. Or Link to Download the app. If you are on Windows 7 or want a manual QuickLook installer then download MSI version from its Github page.

Картинка с сайта: www.how2shout.com

After the download and installation of the app are complete, open the program, and it will appear in the system tray.

Step 2: Configure QuickLook

QuickLook is configured to automatically start with Windows. Now open Windows Explorer, select an item and hit the spacebar. A preview window will open to show you the contents of the file good enough to at least help you understand what the file is all about.

Картинка с сайта: www.how2shout.com

Keep pressing the 4 navigation keys to preview the other files, ‘Esc’ to exit the preview, and enter key to open the file with the appropriate program assigned to open the file type. All the shortcut keys will also work, as the preview isn’t a proper window with all the properties of a normal window. You can even click outside the QuickLook window to exit it.

Step 3: QuickLook plugins from GitHub

I previewed image, video and PDF files with QuickLook, and it worked like a charm. To be able to preview other types of files, you can download and install some plugins for the appropriate file types. To download plugins, just right-click on the QuickLook system tray icon and click on ‘Find new Plugins…’. Alternatively, you can even visit the GitHub page to download some plugins for the QuickLook app.

The plugin to be able to view Microsoft Office files is something that you and most people will need for everyday usage. You can even download some other plugins to be able to preview epub, font files, etc. Installing a plugin is quite easy.

Just download the plugin from QuickLook GitHub page, which is the ‘OfficeViewer v3’ plugin.

Картинка с сайта: www.how2shout.com

OfficeViewer v3

Go to your downloads folder, select the plugin file with ‘.QPLUGIN’, and hit the spacebar. Click on the ‘Click here to install this plugin’ button.

Картинка с сайта: www.how2shout.com

Previewing Microsoft Office files

After the installation is complete, just restart QuickLook, and now previewing Microsoft Office files is now a piece of pie for you.

Картинка с сайта: www.how2shout.com

However, it isn’t possible to view certain types of files like the executable ones, compressed zipped files, and many more. I think more plugins will be added to make QuickLook a great solution for previewing files.

I really like QuickLook for the handy functionality it offers. What is your view about QuickLook? Do you love the utility? Feel free to comment on the same down below.

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A common problem with processing FITS images is determining the quality of FITS images you want to include in a stack of FITS images. To determine whether a FITS file is usable, you have to open it and then stretch it to be able to see the contents of the FITS file on your screen – this can be a time-consuming process. While software like DeepSkyStacker includes the capability to review your images before stacking, you need to save your file listing using the DSS format. Using this method, you can review each image and move rejected images to another folder thereby ending up with a folder of only good images.

QuickLook along with the QuickLook.Plugin.FitsViewer plugin makes it easy to preview FITS files using Windows Explorer: you simply select the FITS file you want to preview, press the space key on your keyboard, and QuickLook displays the stretched FITS file on your screen. You can even hop from one file to another in Windows Explorer and FitsViewer will display the corresponding file.

This is a screenshot showing what the preview window looks like when previewing an image of the Tarantula Nebula:

Картинка с сайта: remoteastrophotography.com

In this example, the FITS files are on the left in Windows Explorer and the preview window is on the right. You can simply select another file from Windows Explorer and the preview window will update to show you that file.

Overview of Installation

The installation process requires two steps:

1. Install QuickLook
2. Install the QuickLook.Plugin.FitsViewer plugin

The sections that follow explain each of the steps in detail; however, if you prefer to watch a video, play the following YouTube video:

Installing QuickLook

QuickLook is available from the Microsoft Store – click the following link for installation from the Microsoft Store:

https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nv4bs3l1h4s?ocid=badge

Alternately, you can download QuickLook from the GitHub releases page here:

https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook/releases

Use the MSI installer for the best experience.

Once you have QuickLook installed, it runs in your system tray and you can stop it from there.

Installing the QuickLook.Plugin.FitsViewer Plugin

Use the following directions to install the FitsViewer plugin:

1. Navigate to the following page:

   https://github.com/siyu6974/QuickLook.Plugin.FitsViewer/releases/

2. Download the file QuickLook.Plugin.FitsViewer.qlplugin
3. Using Windows Explorer, locate the file you just downloaded and press the space bar on your keyboard
4. Select “Click here to install this plugin” from the window that pops-up
5. Exit/Quit QuickLook from your Windows system tray
6. Run QuickLook from your Start menu
7. Preview a FITS file by selecting it in Windows Explorer and then press the space bar on your keyboard

Conclusion

In this article, you learned about the QuickLook.Plugin.FitsViewer QuickLook plugin and learned how to install it on your Windows system.

Картинка с сайта: project-awesome.org

Quick Look plugins

List of useful Quick Look plugins for developers

Install

Using Homebrew

• Run brew install <package>

Install all

brew install qlcolorcode qlstephen qlmarkdown quicklook-json qlimagesize suspicious-package apparency quicklookase qlvideo

Catalina notes

To get plugins working in Catalina, you will need to remove the quarantine attribute.

Run this to see the attributes:

xattr -r ~/Library/QuickLook

And run this to remove the attributes:

xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine ~/Library/QuickLook

Manually

• Click «download manually»
• Move the downloaded .qlgenerator file to ~/Library/QuickLook
• Run qlmanage -r

Plugins

QLColorCode

Preview source code files with syntax highlighting

Run brew install qlcolorcode or download manually

QLStephen

Preview plain text files without or with unknown file extension. Example: README, CHANGELOG, index.styl, etc.

Run brew install qlstephen or download manually

QLMarkdown

Preview Markdown files

Run brew install qlmarkdown or download manually

QuickLookJSON

Preview JSON files

Run brew install quicklook-json or download manually

BetterZipQL

Preview archives

Note: The BetterZipQL plugin was integrated with the BetterZip app.

Run brew install betterzip to install the BetterZip app and its Quick Look plugin or download manually

The legacy BetterZipQL plugin can be downloaded here.

qlImageSize

Display image size and resolution

Run brew install qlimagesize or download manually

Suspicious Package

Preview the contents of a standard Apple installer package

Run brew install suspicious-package or download manually

Apparency

Preview the contents of a macOS app

Run brew install apparency or download manually

QuickLookASE

Preview Adobe ASE Color Swatches generated with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Color CC, Spectrum, COLOURlovers, Prisma, among many others.

Run brew install quicklookase or download manually

QLVideo

Preview most types of video files, as well as their thumbnails, cover art and metadata

Run brew install qlvideo or download manually

More

These are not included in Install all.

Peek 💰

Peek allows you to copy and find text, jump to line numbers, render Github-flavored Markdown with a generated table of contents, restore scroll positions, highlight syntax, & more in the Quick Look previews of over 300 file extensions.

Purchase on the Mac App Store

ProvisionQL

Preview iOS / macOS app and provision information

Run brew install provisionql or download manually

QuickLookAPK

Preview Android APK files

Run brew install quicklookapk or download manually

quicklook-pat

Preview Adobe Photoshop pattern files

Run brew install quicklook-pat or download manually

WebP

Preview WebP images

NOTE: This is already covered by qlImageSize, so this plugin is listed here only in case you do not like qlImageSize.

Run brew install webpquicklook or download manually

SourceCodeSyntaxHighlight

Preview many different source code files

Run brew install --cask --no-quarantine syntax-highlight or download manually

Картинка с сайта: project-awesome.org

Note: This might overwrite some other Quick Look plugins.

License

To the extent possible under law, Sindre Sorhus has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.