Preview files with using Quick Look

One of the coolest thing I like about using Xojo is we can add functionality easily to a app deployed to a certain system. Such as adding a view to preview any file on Mac OSX with quick look within a window. This added functionality can be added using declares, macOSLib or Plugins.(Monkey bread complete plugin as one example of a plugin.)

I spent over a decade using a tool called Livecode that had no real way to add any additional functionality within views of a window. This made for very non professional looking apps that had outdated user experience and needs hacks to do anything cool. The problem with hacks, is they are not a safe way to make a app. A poor user experience also leads to less sales. 

With Xojo this is possible and without any special hack. This is one of the main reasons why I use Xojo over the now outdated Livecode that still stuck back in 2005 for most of what it does out of the box.

I will walk over how to add a quick look view within a window and also add a panel view in this video tutorial. Additional bonus items that also can be used on any platform includes; adding and removing a file list to and from a list box. And how to use classes to assign supers.

enjoy

Key Events with Class Cocoa Controls in Real Studio (Xojo)

The coolest part of using Real Studio is access to all the controls for each platform. Some of these controls are not built-in by default but are still available to use by using declares or Plugins (Like Monkey Bread Software, Complete Plugin or the Mac OSLib (free by the way.) to name an few.). Whatever you choose its up to you.

This however can present some interesting coding challenges to add support for certain events that are available to similar built in controls. Such as the text field keydown event can use an return key to preform an action. There is no keydown event however for an non built-in control, instead one needs to get creative and figure another way around this.

Lucky enough anything is possible by code. This is an simple look at getting an NSSearchField on OSX to search on clicking the Return or Enter key press. This without an event that supports keydown or keyup events.

The reason for this video is there no documentation, I could find to tell us how to do such. It was hours of trial and error to figuring it out. However I believe such information should be shared.

Here an simple video to show how this is done. I showing this off using OSX based controls, because I currently on mac. But should be similar on other platforms.