ql

Allows you to preview files from the command-line	Integrates with Vim/Neovim

Preview files from the command-line using macOS Quick Look.

Open a file in Quick Look from the command-line:

ql <path/to/file>

Yes, there is qlmanage. But you’d always have [DEBUG] staring at you.

Installing 📦

You can install ql via Homebrew:

brew install --HEAD pmeinhardt/tools/ql

This will build the tool from source.

To update, use:

brew upgrade --fetch-HEAD pmeinhardt/tools/ql

Building 🪛

In order to build the ql command, run:

swift build --configuration release

This requires macOS 12.0+ with swift installed.

You can copy the resulting binary anywhere you like or add the .build/release directory to your PATH.

Vim plugin 🔩

There is a Vim plugin for ql. If you use vim-plug, add this line to your Vim configuration file:

Plug 'pmeinhardt/ql', {'do': ':QuickLookCompile'}

The plugin provides a :QuickLook [path] command and <Plug> mappings. If you invoke it without a [path], it will show a preview of the current buffer contents. See .vimrc.develop for usage examples.

You can use the plugin, even if you cannot build ql itself. If the ql binary is not found, the plugin will fall back to using qlmanage if available or open. In this case, leave out the {'do': ':QuickLookCompile'} part of the plugin integration above to avoid build errors when upgrading your Vim plugins.

It is probably possible to integrate other file previewers like GNOME sushi. If you are up for it, I am happy about pull-requests.

Markdown 🚲

If you want to preview Markdown files without additional Quick Look plugins, take a look at Maxdown: https://github.com/pmeinhardt/maxdown

References

• https://developer.apple.com/documentation/quicklook
• https://developer.apple.com/documentation/quicklookui