Folder Preview 1.6
Quick look extension for folders.
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USD$1.99 to get the app and all of it.
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Preview ZIP files as folders.
It does what it says on the tin. This is a new-style Quick Look extension, so it uses a real outline view and a real path bar, rather than trying to make HTML look-alikes, as was necessary with the old Quick Look generator system.
It works not only in Finder’s sidebar and Quick Look inspector window, but also in other apps that support Quick Look previews. In addition to archives of my own files, I store the original archives of all the software that I download in EagleFiler, for searching and verification purposes. The Folder Preview extension makes it possible to look inside those archives from the main EagleFiler window without having to expand them first. The Folder Preview app, which houses the extension, lets you configure view options: icon size, showing hidden files, and the preview depth (for performance reasons). It’s a bit frustrating that the previews are not keyboard-navigable. I assume this is due to limitations of Quick Look.
Trying out Folder Preview highlighted some other shortcomings of the current Quick Look system. First, there doesn’t seem to be a way to handle conflicts. I have BetterZip’s Quick Look extension installed alongside Folder Preview. It supports more archive formats than Folder Preview, but I prefer Folder Preview for ZIP archives. However, macOS forces me to choose. If I enable BetterZip for other file types, it will override Folder Preview for ZIP archives.
There are also a variety of problems with using System Settings to manage Quick Look extensions:
Searching for “Quick Look” finds no results.
Searching for “Extension” only shows Privacy & Security ‣ Security settings, but that’s not where extensions are configured. They’re actually in General ‣ Login Items & Extensions.
Login Items & Extensions is a mess with way too many different things in it: Open at Login, Allow in Background, and Extensions. Each of these is a long list, with no way to jump between the sections. You have to just scroll, and it doesn’t even let you do that from the keyboard. With the default window size, I have to go down about five screenfuls before I get to Extensions.
Within the Extensions section, there is no way to search for the extension that you want. You have to know which category it’s in.
The categories are not keyboard navigable, either, and you have to click the little i buttons to see what’s in each one. Why couldn’t this all be in a column browser?
Clicking i for a category opens a sheet that only has enough room to show 2–3 apps at a time. It’s not resizable or keyboard navigable, and there’s no search. (Unlike some other areas of System Settings, the list is at least in alphabetical order.)
Previously:
- Suspicious Package Keeps on Tickin’
- Sequoia No Longer Supports QuickLook Generator Plug-ins
- System Settings
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This says at least as much about the serious problems with Apple's software as all of the rest of it. It's a pretty good example of how even good third party developers are still going to be brought down by the myriad of design flaws and bugs in macOS.
I've recently found StartupFolder:
https://lowtechguys.com/startupfolder/
It returns the good old startup folder and lets me clean out the stupid Login Items list. It also has neat features like "keep alive" for apps that crash occasionally.
