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Preview is probably the most underrated app of all time, with “quick look” as a contender for most under-appreciated feature. Just hitting spacebar to see virt

Preview is probably the most underrated app of all time, with “quick look” as a contender for most under-appreciated feature. Just hitting spacebar to see virtually any file, and the ability to open in preview and read or even markup and make small changes, is so nice. Whenever I use a non-Mac system I really miss those two features.

calabroa 6y ago
Agreed. Updating PDFs is so painful everywhere else but just works in preview.
symlinkk 6y ago
GNOME has this feature
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  It does and it mostly works but it doesn’t seem to be as fast as on macOS.
  - kitsunesoba 6y ago
    Not sure how GNOME's preview feature is written, but macOS QuickLook plugins are written in C, C++, or Objective-C and the plugins included with the OS leverage OpenCL (or maybe Metal now) to accelerate rendering of previews, which is part of why it's so fast.
    - spacemanmatt 6y ago
      <SecurityHat> > plugins written in C, C++, ... no, thank you </SecurityHat>
  - symlinkk 6y ago
    Knew I would get this type of response. The goalposts keep shifting
    - crubier 6y ago
      No. It’s just that performance and UX is capital for this software, and generally terrible on Linux as compared to MacOS
  - tenken 6y ago
    Sure, until you mention Finder is browsing an SMB share folder ... Once upon a time I used a Macbook, never again :D
kitsunesoba 6y ago
The ability to extend QuickLook to support more types is huge too. If it can be rendered to a static image or HTML page it can have a QuickLook plugin written for it.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  Did not know this
- addicted 6y ago
  QuickLook is great. And the plugins are fantastic. I remember when I used to have a Mac there was a QL a plug-in that allowed you to peek into and browse Zip/Rar/DMG files. That was so useful at a time where my workflow included multiple zip files containing assignments etc. Being able to simply hit spacebar to look into them, instead of decompressing and creating a new folder was incredible. And if I’m not mistaken, the same plugin also allowed spotlight to then search the contents of the zip files.
boogies 6y ago
> Preview is probably the most underrated app of all time I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen macOS users saying they can’t leave it in part because of Preview. But IDK if any have listed any features not present in both GNOME’s Evince and KDE’s Okular (not that I’ve ever needed or used any of the three).
- mceachen 6y ago
  Editing PDFs and sticking your signature on documents is trivial with Preview.app. Save-as-PDF is broken (edits don't show up reliably), but you can easily just print to PDF to work around that bug. I can't get Evince or Okular to do this task: it'd be great if either worked, but I haven't looked into it. (FWIW, I'm a full-time Linux desktop user, but I have to test PhotoStructure on Windows and macOS, so those boxes are on my desk too. PDF-related tasks are the only other reason why I turn to my Mac.)
  - mceachen 6y ago
    (tried again, and neither Evince nor Okular support signatures, at least with the versions shipped with Ubuntu 20.04)
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  How are those for editing PDFs? I haven't tried those specific tools, but in the past when I tried it was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to do things like merge 2 PDFs or rearrange the pages on non-Macs
jug 6y ago
QuickLook on Windows Store is actually pretty good. Same usage with spacebar. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/quicklook/9nv4bs3l1h4s?activetab=pivot:overviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/quicklook/9nv4bs3l1h4s?act...
- riedel 6y ago
  Great find. It is actual FOSS [1][2] [1] https://pooi.moe/QuickLook/ https://pooi.moe/QuickLook/ [2] https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook
  - wruza 6y ago
    Used it for a while, but it really annoys with random “let’s get updates in chinese” popup from time to time. This is that last mile that non-macs always get wrong, gosh. Edit: to add some value to the rant, there is also MiniBin, which sits in a tray area and allows you to open/purge your recycle bin without reaching a desktop icon.
Rainymood 6y ago
Wait what? You can make small changes in preview?!
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Yes, you can annotate, add text etc Best feature: you can remove pages from a PDF. Just drag them off the left side pane
  - terhechte 6y ago
    You can also add pages to a PDF, just drag and drop an image from Finder into the sidebar and boom, you added to the PDF
- qbasic_forever 6y ago
  To this day I have still never found any application on any device that is as simple and easy to add an arrow and some red text to an image for highlighting something as it is with preview. It is just unbelievable how janky and bad every single other application is at doing this simple task. Not even on phones is there anything easy.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    WhatsApp. It combines the adding of the arrow with the process of sending it to someone.
    - qbasic_forever 6y ago
      Ahh interesting point. Somebody needs to make their next 20% project a gmail labs extension that gives a simple annotate option to images in mail. It would probably be a sleeper hit that gets more use than 90% of other gmail features.
Vinnl 6y ago
Hmm, I installed a quick look equivalent on my desktop because I saw that mentioned as being so useful a lot, but I keep forgetting I have it. In what situations would you use it?
- crubier 6y ago
  You just prove the point of the author above. If you had the real Preview on MacOS, you’d be using it all the time without even thinking, like 100% of MacOS users. Because it’s fast, it opens everything faster than you can think, and it just works well. The effort required to launch it is zero, or even negative. It’s just part of the OS. But since you have a « sort of » copy cat which does not work as well or as fast, is not as well integrated, does not support as many files or any fatal flaw like that, you just don’t use it. So yes, Preview is underrated and really hard to replicate.
  - Vinnl 6y ago
    I wasn't talking about Preview, I was talking about quick look, i.e. when I browse files in my file browser, I can hit space and immediately look at that file in a pared-down interface. But I'm not browsing my files that often, and when I do, the only time I seem to be interested in what it looks like is when I'm looking for an image, in which case the thumbnails that I can see without interaction suffice. So I'm probably missing something. Does that mean that, because it's so fast and low-effort, you use it as a complete replacement of a native app you'd use otherwise? And then just for files you're just consuming, or does it also work for editing? And what kind of files? Note that I'm not out to prove any point, I just want to understand what I'm missing :)
    - sooheon 6y ago
      quick look spreadsheets when you don't want to wait half a minute for excel to load. Quick look pdfs with nondescript names that you've downloaded to check paper titles/authors, quick look ppts youve been emailed (from within the email app) to see if they're worth reading in depth.
    - 6y ago
johnwalkr 6y ago
Preview works better than anything I’ve found for adding or deleting pages to a PDF, and using the camera to input your signature is such a nice feature.
pm215 6y ago
I wish preview had the option to disable editing, I find its ability to make small changes a misfeature. I use it to read big spec documents, and it wants to change them all the time -- I think accidentally clicking on tables is the usual trigger. I resorted to making all my pdf files read-only, but Preview is the only pdf viewer that's ever forced me to do that...

calabroa 6y ago

Agreed. Updating PDFs is so painful everywhere else but just works in preview.

symlinkk 6y ago

GNOME has this feature

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
It does and it mostly works but it doesn’t seem to be as fast as on macOS.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  Not sure how GNOME's preview feature is written, but macOS QuickLook plugins are written in C, C++, or Objective-C and the plugins included with the OS leverage OpenCL (or maybe Metal now) to accelerate rendering of previews, which is part of why it's so fast.
  - spacemanmatt 6y ago
    <SecurityHat> > plugins written in C, C++, ... no, thank you </SecurityHat>
- symlinkk 6y ago
  Knew I would get this type of response. The goalposts keep shifting
  - crubier 6y ago
    No. It’s just that performance and UX is capital for this software, and generally terrible on Linux as compared to MacOS
- tenken 6y ago
  Sure, until you mention Finder is browsing an SMB share folder ... Once upon a time I used a Macbook, never again :D

kitsunesoba 6y ago

The ability to extend QuickLook to support more types is huge too. If it can be rendered to a static image or HTML page it can have a QuickLook plugin written for it.

imbnwa 6y ago
Did not know this
addicted 6y ago
QuickLook is great. And the plugins are fantastic. I remember when I used to have a Mac there was a QL a plug-in that allowed you to peek into and browse Zip/Rar/DMG files. That was so useful at a time where my workflow included multiple zip files containing assignments etc. Being able to simply hit spacebar to look into them, instead of decompressing and creating a new folder was incredible. And if I’m not mistaken, the same plugin also allowed spotlight to then search the contents of the zip files.

boogies 6y ago

> Preview is probably the most underrated app of all time I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen macOS users saying they can’t leave it in part because of Preview. But IDK if any have listed any features not present in both GNOME’s Evince and KDE’s Okular (not that I’ve ever needed or used any of the three).

mceachen 6y ago
Editing PDFs and sticking your signature on documents is trivial with Preview.app. Save-as-PDF is broken (edits don't show up reliably), but you can easily just print to PDF to work around that bug. I can't get Evince or Okular to do this task: it'd be great if either worked, but I haven't looked into it. (FWIW, I'm a full-time Linux desktop user, but I have to test PhotoStructure on Windows and macOS, so those boxes are on my desk too. PDF-related tasks are the only other reason why I turn to my Mac.)
- mceachen 6y ago
  (tried again, and neither Evince nor Okular support signatures, at least with the versions shipped with Ubuntu 20.04)
Rebelgecko 6y ago
How are those for editing PDFs? I haven't tried those specific tools, but in the past when I tried it was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to do things like merge 2 PDFs or rearrange the pages on non-Macs

jug 6y ago

QuickLook on Windows Store is actually pretty good. Same usage with spacebar. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/quicklook/9nv4bs3l1h4s?activetab=pivot:overviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/quicklook/9nv4bs3l1h4s?act...

riedel 6y ago
Great find. It is actual FOSS [1][2] [1] https://pooi.moe/QuickLook/ https://pooi.moe/QuickLook/ [2] https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook
- wruza 6y ago
  Used it for a while, but it really annoys with random “let’s get updates in chinese” popup from time to time. This is that last mile that non-macs always get wrong, gosh. Edit: to add some value to the rant, there is also MiniBin, which sits in a tray area and allows you to open/purge your recycle bin without reaching a desktop icon.

Rainymood 6y ago

Wait what? You can make small changes in preview?!

raverbashing 6y ago
Yes, you can annotate, add text etc Best feature: you can remove pages from a PDF. Just drag them off the left side pane
- terhechte 6y ago
  You can also add pages to a PDF, just drag and drop an image from Finder into the sidebar and boom, you added to the PDF
qbasic_forever 6y ago
To this day I have still never found any application on any device that is as simple and easy to add an arrow and some red text to an image for highlighting something as it is with preview. It is just unbelievable how janky and bad every single other application is at doing this simple task. Not even on phones is there anything easy.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  WhatsApp. It combines the adding of the arrow with the process of sending it to someone.
  - qbasic_forever 6y ago
    Ahh interesting point. Somebody needs to make their next 20% project a gmail labs extension that gives a simple annotate option to images in mail. It would probably be a sleeper hit that gets more use than 90% of other gmail features.

Vinnl 6y ago

Hmm, I installed a quick look equivalent on my desktop because I saw that mentioned as being so useful a lot, but I keep forgetting I have it. In what situations would you use it?

crubier 6y ago
You just prove the point of the author above. If you had the real Preview on MacOS, you’d be using it all the time without even thinking, like 100% of MacOS users. Because it’s fast, it opens everything faster than you can think, and it just works well. The effort required to launch it is zero, or even negative. It’s just part of the OS. But since you have a « sort of » copy cat which does not work as well or as fast, is not as well integrated, does not support as many files or any fatal flaw like that, you just don’t use it. So yes, Preview is underrated and really hard to replicate.
- Vinnl 6y ago
  I wasn't talking about Preview, I was talking about quick look, i.e. when I browse files in my file browser, I can hit space and immediately look at that file in a pared-down interface. But I'm not browsing my files that often, and when I do, the only time I seem to be interested in what it looks like is when I'm looking for an image, in which case the thumbnails that I can see without interaction suffice. So I'm probably missing something. Does that mean that, because it's so fast and low-effort, you use it as a complete replacement of a native app you'd use otherwise? And then just for files you're just consuming, or does it also work for editing? And what kind of files? Note that I'm not out to prove any point, I just want to understand what I'm missing :)
  - sooheon 6y ago
    quick look spreadsheets when you don't want to wait half a minute for excel to load. Quick look pdfs with nondescript names that you've downloaded to check paper titles/authors, quick look ppts youve been emailed (from within the email app) to see if they're worth reading in depth.
  - 6y ago

johnwalkr 6y ago

Preview works better than anything I’ve found for adding or deleting pages to a PDF, and using the camera to input your signature is such a nice feature.

pm215 6y ago

I wish preview had the option to disable editing, I find its ability to make small changes a misfeature. I use it to read big spec documents, and it wants to change them all the time -- I think accidentally clicking on tables is the usual trigger. I resorted to making all my pdf files read-only, but Preview is the only pdf viewer that's ever forced me to do that...