X-Combinator

I really dislike getting screen-shots in the format of power-point files. Thankfully, 10.5’s Quick Look can help me preview power-point files. What I needed was a way to have Firefox automatically Quick Look all power-point files that I downloaded. Here’s how to do it:

Open up Script Editor and paste this:

on open filelist
	repeat with i in filelist
		do shell script "qlmanage -p '" & POSIX path of i & "' >& /dev/null &"
	end repeat
end open

File > Save As…. Choose “Application” and save it somewhere it won’t move. I choose /Applications/ql.app.

Now simply choose ql.app next time you download a power-point file or set it up in Firefox’s Preferences > Applications.

qlmanage is the command-line tool to open files in Quick Look. By using AppleScript you are able to create this thin “application” that Firefox will trust and give a downloaded file (As opposed to a shell script, which Firefox will not let you choose as a file handler).