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Quick Look: It's only a preview
The purpose of Leopard's Quick Look is to give you a glance or a peek a document's contents without going through the overhead of launching the document's owning application. This is an interesting technology, but do not regard it as a substitute for opening the document properly. The preview used by Quick Look depends upon either the owning application or on Apple's own built-in "generators" (stored in /System/Library/QuickLook). Either way, the preview can portray the document in any way it pleases, and this may differ, sometimes significantly, from what you would see if you opened the document for real.
Two recent emails from MacFixIt readers suggest what can happen if you forget this and take a QuickLook preview as a definitive representation of what's in the document. Here's one:
Apparently Quick Look does not correctly interpret times in Excel files. In the Excel file listing my son's soccer games it shifted the times by four hours. 8:15 AM displays as 12:15PM, 9:15 AM displays as 1:15 PM. The original Excel spread sheet has the cell formated as time.
The reader sent me the Excel file, and sure enough, I saw a different time in the Quick Look preview than in the actual document as opened by Excel - except that my Quick Look displayed time differed by only one hour, not by four hours, from the Excel displayed time. Clearly this has something to do with what time zone you're in, since the three-hour discrepancy corresponds to the fact that the reader is on the East coast and I'm on the West coast. But that's not important. What's important is that, whether you want to call it a bug or whatever, Quick Look is displaying the data incorrectly.
This should not matter much - the document was accurately displayed otherwise, so there could be no doubt as to what document it was, and that's the purpose of Quick Look. But the reader made the very natural mistake of believing the data as portrayed by Quick Look - and took his son to the soccer game four hours late, by which time it was over.
Here is the second example:
Enclosed is an image showing the different formatting of the same document when opening in Word or in Quicklook. This is not just a cometic issue. I was certain that my latest revision of the document where I had applied 2 columns was lost. I searched for a long time until I finally realized that the found document actually was the right one and appeared correctly formatted when opened in Word. Quicklook is of limited use unless the documents look identical than in the actual application.
Now, to be sure, this reader is perfectly correct to be put off by this occurrence. The addition of the second column was exactly what distinguished the new version of the document from the old, so this was what the reader was looking for in the Quick Look preview. But the two-column formatting was exactly what the preview was failing to portray.
The point is, though, that these misrepresentations of the document's contents, though misleading, are to some extent forgivable. It is Microsoft's job - not Apple's - to supply a "generator" for Office documents that will portray these documents correctly in Quick Look. But obviously Microsoft has had no chance to do this yet. Apple has supplied an Office document "generator" as a sort of courtesy, and it does a surprisingly good job.
By the same token, you can use Quick Look to page through every slide of a Keynote '08 document, because Keynote belongs to Apple and Keynote '08 is the current version, intended to go with Leopard, so naturally Apple has taken the trouble to provide a Keynote "generator" that will show off the capabilities of this new Leopard technology. But then don't start whining (as one reader did) when you steadfastly refuse to update past Keynote version 2 and then discover that Quick Look doesn't give you the ability to page through the slides!
Even more interesting is Keynote (version 2). A Keynote 2 file only displays an icon in Quick View / Cover Flow. If one exports the file as a Power Point file then not only does it display but one can scroll in Quick Look and see the entire file as a functioning file! If one exports as a Flash (.swf) file and associated HTML file not only does the HTML display in Quick Look but it actually plays the file as a Flash movie.
Well, duh! If you convert to a format for which Apple has supplied a "generator", you'll get a pretty accurate representation of its contents in Quick Look. But if you are using a version of Keynote that is not one but two generations old, so that you are one of perhaps only three people on earth with the temerity to run this ancient version of Keynote on Leopard, do you honestly expect Apple to waste any person-hours providing a Quick Look "generator" for Keynote 2 just for you?
So, to sum up: a Quick Look preview is just a preview, it doesn't come into existence all by itself, how it looks depends upon the work of developers and programmers who have provided a "generator" for a particular file format, it may have bugs or inaccuracies, and not every application on earth is going to have any useful Quick Look preview for its documents at all; Leopard has only just come out, developers have many other metaphorical fires to put out, and it may be months, if ever, before developers get around to adding Quick Look support for the current version of their applications, while the chances of their providing such support for outdated versions of their applications are vanishingly small.
At the same time, it must be admitted that inaccuracy in a Quick Look preview can be troublesome. There are some Leopard environments where Quick Look is all you've got. If you're in the middle of using Time Machine to view the past, you can't launch an application for real; the only way to know what's inside a version of a document is with Quick Look. So keep in mind that what you see here might not be precisely what you get. When in doubt, use Time Machine's Restore capacity to give yourself a real copy of the old version of the document - you can do that without destroying the current version of the document - and then quit Time Machine and open them both in their actual application.
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Is this really the kind of attitude anybody has come to expect from MacFixIt? In all of my years reading this site -- multiple times a day -- I don't think I've ever encountered an attitude like that before.
Come to think of it, just a few weeks ago I got a rude email response as well. I asked a question related to the possibility of synchronizing contacts and calendars from a back-end server to a local handheld. The MacFixIt response basically said "we're not a troubleshooting service; take your question to a forum where somebody else can be bothered with you."
I have to say that if this is the way of things -- whether related to c|net or not -- here's one loyal reader who's been made very unhappy.
I've been wanting to make a similar comment for a while now.
Ever since Ted stepped down from the day-to-day stuff, this has been increasing. Snarky, biting replies about people not following the MacFixIt way of updating or installing or repairing permissions or whatever... or about people who don't know any better about this, that or the other.
Insulting the readers seems a questionable way to run a website. Whoever the primary editor is, he needs a vacation in a big way (IMO). Typing those kind of comments to vent some steam is OK, I suppose, as long as you delete them and then type something more patient and professional. Actually posting them on the front page of a major website is poor form, guys.
Poor form, indeed. And it's getting worse every week.
One of the rather nice things about MacFixit in the past has been its mature, dispassionate, good-humored manner--precisely that which is lacking in many technical forums, where information of varying quality is served up with large amounts of ego and disparagement of others. I would have thought that a corporate takeover would have led to a more circumscribed and restricted manner, not the ad hominen comments above. You might want think about how most of your readers react when reading your comments.
i'd rather see fewer tips based on voodoo or speculation. a little snarkiness is fine by me.
A little snarkiness would be fine by me, too. My wife has a few published novels to her credit, and snarkiness is expected in the genre. I read multiple political blogs every day, and snarkiness is more than expected -- it's one of the draws.
But "Well, duh!" isn't snark; it's rude and condescending.
From the same paragraph, "[...] you are one of perhaps only three people on earth with the temerity to run this ancient version of Keynote [...] do you honestly expect Apple to waste any person-hours providing a Quick Look 'generator' for Keynote 2 just for you?" That's not snark. That's just freakin' mean.
The author of this piece sounds like one those people that has given Mac users such a bad reputation over the years. Unhelpful. Unfriendly. Uncritical Apple apologist. For the record, I love Apple and their products, but when they drop the ball as they sometimes do, it doesn't diminish them to have one of their customers point it out and help to resolve the issue.
Again, I just hope that this isn't the kind of tone we can expect from MacFixIt going forward. I'm a big fan of this site, but this is the Internet -- MacFixIt isn't the only place for this kind of information. To date, it's just been my favorite.
As the reader who took his son to the soccer game at the wrong time (apparently because I was not fully versed on the purpose of Quick Look, I'm not really offended by the tone of the article.
However, I'm a little surprised that some one would take the position that it isn't really Apple's responsibility to render something accurately in Quick Look...and if it renders something deceptively, well, that isn't even a bug. Quite frankly, that is a very Windowsesque, blame the user approach to software. The Mac is supposed to be intuitive. Remember WYSIWYG? Steve is famous for saying that it is hard work to make things easy. Quick Look is an amazing piece of software and I fully expect Apple to sweat the details and make it fulfill it's potential...To imply that displaying incorrect information in the midst of an otherwise perfectly rendered spreadsheet is not a bug is simply mind boggling.
To close here is a quote from Apple's description of Quick Look:
Using Quick Look in Leopard, you can view the contents of a file without even opening it. Flip through multipage documents. Watch full-screen video. See entire Keynote presentations. With a single click....
See everything.
Quick Look works with nearly every file on your system, including images, text files, PDF documents, movies, Keynote presentations, Mail attachments, and Microsoft Word and Excel files.
I guess the authors' position is "viewing the contents" doesn't necessarily mean the actual correct contents...perhaps it is just something nearly like the contents.
Jeff Constantine
I agree and I think someone needs an attitude 'upgrade' that's at least two versions 'newer.'
Years ago I posted at the Apple forums so much (free tech support) that Apple actually sent me a very nice pen with Apple Tech Support written on it. But because of Apple's moderator, at the time, that pulled a very important thread of mine that got one of the largest hits the forum had ever seen... and then pulled someone else's post that also was very important... I stopped posting there.
The same is true with the Adobe Photoshop and InDesign forums. The abuse from a small group of regulars and even the moderators has made it so that I no longer even go there.
Hopefully this will not be the case with MacFixIt that has shown such tolerance for 'stupid' (NOT) questions over the years.
I used to teach at a university and and to spin a 'cliched' saying:
There are no stupid questions... only stupid responses.
To end on a more positive note...
The MacFixIt forum moderators have ALWAYS been courteous and helpful. And I don't recall ever reading from the posters the kind of ad hominem remarks that are ever increasing in the anonymity of forums.
Thank you MFI moderators for your help!
I, too, think this "attitude" completely stinks. I'd be "put off" by it on some teenager's free "Mac blog", but doubly so on a supposedly "professional" site that actually charges money for memberships!
What's so "whiny" about a user complaining that Quicklook doesn't handle previews of a native Apple OS X application like Keynote, just because he/she is still using an older version?
It is, after all, Apple's own proprietary format - and if they can't even display it properly in their own OS's preview utility, it's worth pointing that out and complaining about it. (Last I checked, the advertising literature and even the retail box for iWork '08 says nothing about "proper previews of slides now work in Leopard Quicklook!" as a specific reason to upgrade.)
I love my Mac and most Apple products in general, but there's only so much money to go around. I'm starting to grow increasingly sour on Apple's stance that "If you buy the latest version of one of our operating systems, you'll automatically need to buy upgrades to all of our applications too - or else you won't get the full experience you're supposed to have." Last I checked, even the very latest version of Microsoft Word could still open documents made with MS Word all the way back to version 2.0. Sure, it will convert them to the new file format upon re-saving them, but that's the "right" have to handle backwards-compatibility.
In response to KesslerB's comment on the language and attitude in the "Well,duh!" review: you beat me to it. I was just about to give my own response to this arrogant and completely un-MacFixIt article when I came across your comments. Bravo KesslerB! You couldn't have said it better.
What's happening to MacFixIt? I thought you guys were there to help folks out. Not to cop an attitude like you seem to be getting. Whoever wrote the "Well, duh!" piece should be demoted to office boy. Because your writing style demeans the MacFixIt brand name.
I've been meaning to point out something similar as well. Since the changes at the editorial helm, the technical content has remained excellent, but the site has developed a bit of an attitude, both towards users and towards Apple. It shows up in the headlines, and in the content. It doesn't help anyone, and it definitely can turn people off. I would recommend toning that down a bit.
Does everything have to be politically correct? Always?
How about expecting a smidgeon of common sense, even if you are lacking in the same. Users must be expected to recognize that they don't live in a world surrounded by others exactly like them. Think outside the box. The world was not made for you.
Well here is another "me too" for commenting on the attitude problem. I am glad to see it was not only me. I miss the old days of Ted Landau, this site has not been the same since. I too have received a smarmy reply to an email. I sent in a perfectly good idea and clearly labeled it limited but topical and got a lecture that I was an idiot and stupid. What a bunch of garbage. Being professional and polite is not "politically correct" as was stated by another reader, it is essential to cordial discourse in a community such as this one. So sad to see more and more trite comments, sloppy grammar, and opinion replace good solid mac troubleshooting reporting.
This guy does a quick scan of a document in QuickLook.
It tells him that his son's game is at 12:15.
The game's really at 8:15.
--> As clearly shown in the original document. <--
Because he eyeballed it with QuickLook he's at fault, and gets a "well duh" response because no one should expect that Apple has the expertise to properly render times in Excel documents.
That is so equine excrement.
If Apple is going to read a document into QuickLook it has to be exact, or it is useless.
If they don't want to provide exact replication then they _must_ use a generic representation, and refuse to display _any_ "version" of the document.
To me that's the "well duh" status.
Aside that, there's MacFixit's recent ragging on people who, for various reasons, haven't upgraded to the latest and most buggiest version of a particular program.
I thought MacFixIt was about support.
I never dreamed it was about insulting users and herding the flock into the latest beta-test experimentation, and programmer-fault amelioration, quagmire via the "kill your system and re-install everything" winDoze mantra.
I really miss Ted.
-=-Dennis
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> I really miss Ted.
Me too.
O please.
The 'Well, Duh!" was not aimed at the Excel user but rather at the user who wants to use a several versions old application and expect that everything should just work.
And it needs to be Microsoft's responsibility to provide accurate Quick Look's as it is Microsoft's program. If it is Apple's, just where would that expectation stop?
- by WhiteDog November 8, 2007 2:19 AM PST
- It may seem like piling on at this point but I agree this article crossed the line by insulting and demeaning readers. I realize MacFixIt probably gets a lot of "dumb" e-mail, but it's the editor's job to filter out the irritation before a response goes online. I have defended MacFixIt in the past when their headlines began to get more pointed because that seems to be necessary to attract readers these days; however, this article went too far.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (25 Comments)Whoever has been (dis)coloring MacFixIt lately with their "attitude" needs to find another outlet for their angst - or another line of work. Until recently one of MacFixIt's virtues has been that it provides information objectively, largely free of the cant and propaganda that so often pass for news elsewhere on the web. MacFixIt seems to be losing its focus lately, though, which is regrettable. I hope the editors will examine their standards and practices and clean up their act before things get any further out of hand.
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Don't anthropomorphize computers.
They hate that.