Re: icon previews?

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,
> not only for images. everything. can the gworkspace preview be
> extended so external preview generator/thumbnailer can provide the
> icon? im kinda tired of looking at filenames and icons that all look
> the same. and even tired of waiting for applications to load the
> document only to close it when its not what im looking for.
I have no intention to extend the previewer in that direction, I explain 
below the difference. To have a quick preview of a document, I consider 
the contents inspector enough. The contents inspector is extensible and 
already supports the preview of RTF files, PDF files, addresses, sound 
files. Other previews are possible and some are "work in progress".
> on the other hand im writing a clone of the mac os 7 finder and i just
> want to look for ideas how to add previews as quickly as possible
You could use the contents inspector plugins, however there is a 
fundamental difference in the concept: the icon preview can only show 
images, the content preview can show everything since it embeds a small 
user interface.
Thus for example you could not preview a sound in an icon preview (well, 
you could draw its wave envelope). To preview a RTF text you need to 
render it. A PDF could show the first page (while the contents inspector 
allows you to browse it).

In other words, one is a NSImage, the other a NSView.

Riccardo