Implementing the Mac "Quick Look" type of window

[Devin Asay]

On Apr 9, 2010, at 11:07 AM, Peter Haworth wrote:

> Not sure the correct term for this but I'm looking for a way to to  
> implement windows that look like the "Quick Look" windows on a Mac.  
> They "explode" out from the document icon popup menu that you select  
> the Quick Look function  from.  They have a semi-transparent border  
> around the document they display and a close button at the top left  
> and a vertical scroll bar.
> 
> I thought maybe the opaque property of a card might be a starting  
> point but it doesn't seem to affect the appearance of the card at  
> all.  Also tried playing around with the various options of the  
> Blending Properties but they seem to affect the appearance of objects  
> on the card rather than the card itself.
> 
> Thanks for any pointers as to how to do this,

Actually, Pete, if you are on a Mac, 10.5 or higher, you can can access the QuickLook capability directly. I wrote this script after a discussion on this list a few months back. Thanks to Bernd Niggeman and Jim Sims for the ideas:

on mouseUp
  answer file "please choose ..."
  if it is empty then exit mouseUp
  put it into theFile
  put apostrophe (theFile) into theFile
  --put "qlmanage -t " & "-s 900 " & theFile into tcmd -- apparently sets it to max orig size, white window
  -- put "qlmanage -t " & "-f 5 " & theFile into tcmd ---- apparently sets it to max orig size, white window
  put "qlmanage -p " & theFile into tcmd -- shows it in a black window
  get shell  (tCmd)
  if the result is not empty then put the result
end mouseUp

function apostrophe what
  return "'" & what & "'"
end apostrophe

Regards,

Devin

Devin Asay
Humanities Technology and Research Support Center
Brigham Young University