Suggestions about the Peek utility

[vivadavid]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Hi,

As a user of QuickLook, I'd like to make three sugestions for the Peek utility (I'm currently running PowerToys 0.70.0):

1. Support for more formats (audio, video, Microsoft Office and LibreOffice documents, etc.). I presume the list of supported formats will grow over time.

2. I'd like to be able to peek on a file by just pressing SPACE, but the settings won't allow me to do that. SPACE is what I press in QuickLook and also the key by default (as far as I know) in MacOS, which is where this type of feature has been taken from. Having to press a combination of keys would make my life more complicated (I currently use CTRL+SPACE and ALT+SPACE, so adding Windows+SPACE would make this area of my keyboard too crowded). As a user, I should be able to decide the key I want to use for each utility.

3. In QuickLook, when I'm peeking on a document, I can click UP or DOWN and move to the previous or following document. This is quick and convenient.

Thanks for this new feature, which I'm hoping will keep getting beter and better.

Scenario when this would be used?

When peeking on files on File Explorer.

Supporting information

No response

[acseven]

3. In QuickLook, when I'm peeking on a document, I can click UP or DOWN and move to the previous or following document. This is quick and convenient.

Actually it's all the directional keys. This the one thing why I keep using Quicklook. It's by far the best advantage of the original macOS implementation, even though it's not perfect even in QuickLook.

The other useful feature I find in Quicklook (msi version) that Peek doesn't appear to support is previewing in any File Explorer dialog, especially Open. This is useful to check a file's content just right before you're attaching it to an email for example.

[NEKolev]

3. In QuickLook, when I'm peeking on a document, I can click UP or DOWN and move to the previous or following document. This is quick and convenient.

For photo preview, I think it's better to change to left/right arrow.

[vivadavid]

3. In QuickLook, when I'm peeking on a document, I can click UP or DOWN and move to the previous or following document. This is quick and convenient.

For photo preview, I think it's better to change to left/right arrow.

I think both combinations of keys should be allowed. In my particular case, File Explorer is in Detail mode, so when I move from one file to another, I actually go up or down.

[8227846265]

It seems on Peek you cannot be use on Select File Window when you're trying to upload a file on the browser, while QuickLook can.

[klueman]

Agreed with all of these.

Should also add that the usability of Peek is questionable if you have to close the peek window each time. At that point, why not just open the file? In this regard, the file preview built into File Explorer serves as a better way to "peek" at a file without opening it. Feels like it defeats the purpose if you're still opening a window.

[vivadavid]

There are certain features that may make or not make sense on paper and it's hard to know whether they are for us unless we try them. That's what I did with QuickLook and, after a while, I was convinced the feature was useful to me.

Having said that, for this feature to be useful, two conditions need to be met:

1. The shortcut must be simple: that's why I suggested allowing just the SPACE. It's a long key, quick to press and easy to remember.

2. To close the window with the peak of the document, you should also be able to press SPACE again. It's essential to make sure this feature is easy and quick to use.

Of course, this is all subjective, but I'm talking about what's worked for me with QuickLook.

[twig]

Yeah keyboard shortcut for this isn't ideal.

I was multi-selecting folders in Windows Explorer and Peek popped up. No indication it was coming from PowerToys and the window title was an unhelpful "WinUI Desktop"

Had to disable it, otherwise can't get anything done

[crutkas]

Hey friends, this has multiple asks in it. I feel they all have tracked asks. One issue per request else it becomes near impossible for us to track asks.

/dup https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/26210 is tracking the office file ask.

[microsoft-github-policy-service[bot]]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!