Finder Preview plugins

[slur]

Yup. Every vendor should have the opportunity to write plugins for the Finder so they can be previewed in the column view and Info window just like RTFs and PDFs and JPGs.

[smeger]

Supposedly, it's possible, but I haven't seen any documentation on how to do it.

[dricci]

I thought the finder pretty much covered all the basics. What were you thinking of previewing in the finder besides images and text docs?

[symphonix]

That is more or less already taken care of. If developers simply generate a preview image when saving the file and tack it onto the resource, along with the icons, then the preview will appear in the Finder's preview window. Ta dah!

At least, that's how I understand it.

Of course, it would only work for items you've already opened on your system, not for anything you've just downloaded and haven't looked at yet.

[scruffy]

As new image, video, and sound file formats come along, you should be able to preview them without waiting for Apple to deal with them. Also, new text document formats - if you buy an arbitrary new word processor or something, you ought to be able to preview its documents in the finder...

I think the Finder previews don't use resource forks, they just deal with the file itself...

[smeger]

Apple has been discouraging developers from using Resource forks, so tacking an image into the resource fork is a bad solution. I'd guess that the Finder is using the operating system's filter services somehow to generate its previews. It might be possible to write a filter service for a new type of file and register it and have it "just work."

What types of file formats are people having problems with?

[Bluefusion]

Also, what file formats are there that don't get previews? I mean, if you can't view it in QuickTime or Windows Media, how often would you see it (yes, I know some people use RealPlayer, but it's their fault you don't have RealOne for Mac yet)? I can't think of any file format not supported by the app that created it or Quicktime/WMP...

[slur]

That's the idea. You can't preview Microsoft Word documents or Excel files or Bryce documents. All these programs are free to tack a PICT resource into the file, but it's not the same thing, is it? The same way that QuickTime allows you to play a movie in the preview, we should be able to scroll a text preview, or rotate a 3D preview. Finder plugins would allow developers to decide how best to present their document previews, rather than leaving it up to Apple.