Quick Look select text doesn't work in Lion

[su]

If I get a pdf or txt file in the first pane and quick look at it with cmd+alt+Y I cannot select its text.

The same operation works when performed directly from Finder. Should I open a request at github?

[Patrick Robertson]

I cannot select text when opening PDFs or .txt files with Quicklook from Finder. I don't know how you can.

The Quicklook panel used in Quicksilver is not 'custom' for Quicksilver, and is the standard Quicklook panel that is supplied by Apple to developers (via the frameworks). As such, unless Apple update the frameworks there is nothing we can do to change the behaviour of the Quicklook panel itself.

[su]

http://www.macworld.com/article/1164668/select_and_copy_text_within_quick_look_previews.html

[Patrick Robertson]

Aaah OK. Well I was unaware of that setting, I can see how it would come in handy.

Unfortunately, as I've said, this is not a problem with Quicksilver, but with the Quicklook panel which Apple provides to developers. There is no documentation on how to add this setting, so unless someone can reverse-engineer the Finder.app code, then it looks like we're stuck

[su]

I get that this is not a problem with QS.

However, if the QL panel available to developers is (slightly?) different (in its use or implementation) from that used by Finder, is there any way to write this setting in?
Can you point to the Apple documentation regarding the QL panel used by QS? Just curious.

[su]

Ooops, I meant 'write settings in' (any, not only the aforementioned).

[Patrick Robertson]

Perhaps it will be possible with the newer frameworks from Mountain Lion, but this is unlikely. I'll bear it in mind, and if I ever see any updates from Apple I'll be sure to take a look.

You can read the QLPreviewPanel documentation here:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Quartz/Reference/QLPreviewPanel_Class/Reference/Reference.html

[R]

FYI, the best quicklook implementation I have come across is in the Bibdesk bibliography manager: http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/

You not only get to select text from pdfs, but also have the program remember the resized window!

[Patrick Robertson]

> FYI, the best quicklook implementation I have come across is in the Bibdesk bibliography manager: http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/

> You not only get to select text from pdfs, but also have the program remember the resized window!

That's worth knowing, thanks. As it's open source, I'll take a look at the source code :)

...and, interestingly, it seems to be almost a complete rewrite of the QuickLook panel code as a distribution called FileView: http://code.google.com/p/fileview/

Unfortunately changing to this framework at this moment in time is not going to be a top priority.