Is this meant to work for all files that aren't associated with other QL plugins?

[ghost]

I thought this plugin was meant to quicklook all files as text, if they don't have their own plugin already.

I have already found many files for which this doesn't work.

So I ask, what is the purpose of this plugin? Does it truly only support files it has been programmed to support, and not arbitrary "unseen" filetypes?

[cipri-tom]

Reading this source code

qlstephen/QuickLookStephenProject/GeneratePreviewForURL.m

Lines 24 to 31 in 9ffd24e

	if (!magicAttributes) {
	NSLog(@"QLStephen: Could not determine attribtues of file %@", url);
	return noErr;
	}
	if (!magicAttributes.isTextFile) {
	return noErr;
	}

and this:

qlstephen/QuickLookStephenProject/QLSFileAttributes.m

Lines 65 to 66 in 9ffd24e

	task.launchPath = @"/usr/bin/file";
	task.arguments = @[@"--mime", @"--brief", path];

and

qlstephen/QuickLookStephenProject/QLSFileAttributes.m

Lines 100 to 105 in 9ffd24e

	NSArray *components = [mimeType componentsSeparatedByString:@"/"];
	if (components.count != 2)
	return NO;
	if ([components[0] rangeOfString:@"text"].location != NSNotFound)
	return YES;

It seems that it relies on the /usr/bin/file program to return a MIME type that contains text. If file --mime does not return text/... for your file, then qlstephen will not try to render it

---

For example, for a yadayada.geojson file, running file --mime --brief yadayada.geojson returns application/json; charset=us-ascii. Since text is not part of that, it is not rendered by QLStephen 😞