Using Mac's native Quick Look function as default previewer in nnn

[pa-0]

Reading the wiki, I noticed that QuickLook-Win can be configured as default for Live Preview plugin on Windows. Is the same possible on Mac using the original QL?

[jarun]

Not sure. I don't use Mac personally. Why don't you try it out?

[pa-0]

Hi jarun, I'm actually trying to figure out how. Maybe my google-fu is just not up to the task, but it doesn't seem like Apple has exposed any easy method to triggering Quick Look, such as the "Bridge/DDE/CLI" method for passing file paths to QuickLook-Win.

[pa-0]

Apparently, my google-fu was the problem 🤣

Instead of switching out to the Finder, or using the open command, you can Quick Look the file directly from Terminal. 

How? The key is a Unix program, qlmanage, introduced in OS X 10.5 and built into macOS. This program was really designed for programmers writing Quick Look generators, but we can use it for our own purposes. To see the Quick Look preview for any file, just type:

qlmanage -p somefile

where **somefile** is the full name of a file in the current directory.

As an example, here’s how you could use Quick Look from Terminal to examine a PNG file. The two commands below first change to the Mac’s User Pictures/Fun folder in the Library folder, then ask the system to display the Quick Look preview for one of the images: 

cd /Library/User Pictures/Funqlmanage -p "Gingerbread Man.tif"

[pa-0]

Had to unmark the previous answer, because that opens Quick Look in DEBUG mode, which means any Quick Look extensions you have installed, i.e. Markdown Preview, will not actually work. Better solution:

This is possible now using a Shortcut to avoid having to open Quick Look in DEBUG-mode.

Run Shortcuts from the command line

1. Add the 'Show Input in Quick Look' action to a new Shortcut.

   

2. Then from terminal, you can pass files to the shortcut like this:

   shortcuts run "Quick Look" -i ~/Desktop/preview.jpg

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Probably stating the obvious here, but for easier access you could always name the shortcut "QL" instead of "Quick Look" so that calling it from terminal takes less typing (shortcuts run "QL" -i path/to/file). Better yet, add an alias to your .zhrc/.bashrc:

alias ql='shortcuts run "QL" -i'

Then you could call it from Terminal with just

ql path/to/file

I still need to read the docs on nnn but I'm assuming you could then assign this command to a variable and have Live Preview interact with Quick Look that way.