With Dolphin File Manager I would like to be able to Quick Preview files from the File Manager without having to first open up the file in an external application.
Having being using Cinnamon Desktop for a long time before switching over to KDE Plasma 6, I noticed it’s lacking this feature. On Cinnamon Desktop you can select a file and press Space to quick preview files without opening in external apps. This is also something you can do on MacOS also as shown in the following video;
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xEZlQgm9wuo
I would like to see this as a feature implemented to KDE Plasma just being able to select a file and press Space key to quick view something. I couldn’t seem to find any extensions that work with Plasma 6 that can enable you to do this.
Information Panel is not he same as Quick Preview of files, nor does it show the contents of the file. Quick Preview allows you to view full contents of the file like Text document or PDF document just as if you were viewing them in a native external app, but in a limited view port that can be opened by pressing Space key when selected. People often mistake the Information Panel for Quick Preview, but it’s not the same thing.
I see the last update for this was about a month ago, no ETA when it’s finally merged?
It seems to be a little known feature but MacOS’s Quick Look feature actually runs on Spotlight! (MacOS’s version of Krunner). I’ve not seen it discussed much online at all, especially in discussions regarding Kiview and getting some Quick Look alternative from MacOS.
I was wondering if there has been any existing plans to implement such a feature with Kiview once integrated with KDE Plasma.
It’s a delight on MacOS.
An example use case: I use Spotlight to search a file by name, but maybe there are multiple files that have similar names or they’re too long and it’s hard to tell which one is which, by using Quick Look alongside Spotlight I can quickly identify which one I want and then drag and drop it from Spotlight itself.
There’s an article talking about this wonderful feature on zdnet but turns out I can’t include links here so you’ll just have to take my word (Just kidding! Search for an article named “How to use the new Quick Look feature in MacOS Ventura Spotlight” written by a Jack Wallen on December 14 2022 if you want to read it.)
Screenshot of this AWESOME feature! :
Unrelated but I was SO relieved when I accidentally discovered that Krunner does allow for you to drag and drop selected files from the result list. Always good for those quick moments I need to attach files on the browser. Phew!
Yes, the idea from the get-go, once we have KIview in place to use it anywhere it brings value. To do that we are designing it to be reusable.
Dev is slow, haven’t been active on it for a while.
Thanks for the information. Personally, I am surprised that the core KDE team does not see this as a top priority feature because it would be so extremely useful to people using KDE as a work platform - so many of the feature announcements are about little graphical refinements that they seem to have taken over as the focus of attention and work. For most people they are of very little importance to actually getting work done.
I’m someone who has been using KDE since before 3.5 - and really loved the rich functionality that was brought into the browser and file manager then (KIOslaves, menus etc) - stuff that was both cool and useful. I understand that vast amounts of dev effort had to be put into the evolution onto later QT frameworks, and user-visible features suffered as a result. Now, the platform seems relatively stable and ready to allow a serious push on the applications. Dolphin is reasonably good but is no match for Directory Opus on Windows - nor even as good as poor old Explorer. When Explorer is ahead of you, there is a bit of running to do
I have lost count of the number of times I have searched for news about file previewing on KDE/Dolphin over the years. I just can’t understand how the devs don’t see this as a vital part of the desktop, perhaps the most important single program that comes with KDE. You are confirming that KIview is “on the plan” but can you offer some clarification about why it is such a low priority?
many thanks and much appreciation for KDE overall.
There is no “KDE team”, only a collective, a community.
No one directs anyone to work on anything mostly. We self-assign bug fixing, review, etc…
I can recommend you the great post by Nate:
It is not like, a lot of us volunteers are dedicated a good chunk of our free time for the collective benefit…
(Just kidding! Search for an article named “How to use the new Quick Look feature in MacOS Ventura Spotlight” written by a Jack Wallen on December 14 2022 if you want to read it.)
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