Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:55 pm Post subject: NeoOffice 2.2.5 messes up ODT QuickLook
Unfortunately, it appears that NeoOffice 2.2.5 causes the QuickLook preview of ODT documents to stop working, if those ODT documents were created via TextEdit or Bean.
I've saved a number of ODT files using Bean (which uses the same ODT-saving ability of Leopard which TextEdit also has), and with versions of NeoOffice prior to 2.2.5 I was able to preview these documents in QuickLook just fine.
However, since upgrading to 2.2.5, these Bean-created ODT files no longer preview correctly in QuickLook – the preview appears to be the raw binary of the ODT file itself (the preview text starts with "PK", which is the signature of a zip file).
I confirmed that NeoOffice 2.2.5 was the culprit by deleting the NeoOffice app bundle and restarting – all ODT files now previewed correctly. When I reinstalled NeoOffice 2.2.5, QuickLook stopped working as it had previously – NeoOffice-created ODT files showed only the embedded PDF preview image of the ODT file, and the TextEdit or Bean-created ODT files displayed the raw binary of the file itself as the preview again, as noted above.
How soon can this be fixed? Also, is it possible to provide an option to disable whatever custom previewing you're forcing for ODT files, so that files created by NeoOffice work the same way in QuickLook as ODT files created via TextEdit or Bean?
I created another ODT file via TextEdit, and confirmed that QuickLook still isn't working properly with NeoOffice 2.2.5 present on my computer. (MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz, OS X 10.5.5, with all system updates installed.)
I also installed OpenOffice.org 3.0 earlier this evening – I'd deleted that first once I ran into this ODT QuickLook problem, but when the problem didn't go away (even after a reboot), I then moved to delete NeoOffice, and that appeared to resolve the issue.
Is it possible that OOo3 could have done something to my system, resulting in NeoOffice appearing to be the culprit in breaking QuickLook for ODT files? (The reason I didn't consider that to be a possibility before is because OOo3 doesn't use an installer.)
I'm really hoping for a simple solution to this – I'm going crazy not being able to QuickLook my ODT files! _________________ Open – It Matters!
Is it possible that OOo3 could have done something to my system, resulting in NeoOffice appearing to be the culprit in breaking QuickLook for ODT files? (The reason I didn't consider that to be a possibility before is because OOo3 doesn't use an installer.)
Mac OS X does not make it clear with QuickLook handler is performing the QuickLook rendering. If Mac OS X selects NeoOffice's handler, our handler will see if there is a .pdf file in your .odt file. If so, it will render that. If not, it will invoke Apple's .odt QuickLook handler that is bundled with Mac OS X.
Since you are seeing different results, Mac OS X has probably selected some other handler. I don't believe that OpenOffice.org 3.0 bundles a QuickLook handler so maybe Bean registers its own handler?
You can check if Bean registers it own handler by Control-clicking on the Bean application icon in the Finder and selecting Show Package Contents from the popup menu. A Finder window will appear with a Contents folder, navigate into the Contents folder and if there is a Library subfolder, navigate into that subfolder. Is there a QuickLook subfolder in the Library subfolder? If so, try dragging it to your Desktop and rebooting. Does rendering in Finder's Cover Flow view work correctly after doing the above steps?
Thanks for the additional insight Patrick – I was unaware that OS X apps could implement their own QuickLook handlers in this manner.
Unfortunately, Bean doesn't contain a "Library" folder in the app bundle, so no QuickLook handlers there. I also checked my ~/Library/ folder, there's no rogue QuickLook subfolder there. And my /Library/QuickLook/ folder contains the same handlers I've had there for several months now (BetterZipQL, GBQLGenerator, iWork) – nothing related to ODT files.
Interestingly, I restored NeoOffice 2.2.4 from my Time Machine backup, and the problem still persists – yet I *know* that QuickLook worked fine while I was using 2.2.4. This tells me that the problem isn't in the NeoOffice QL handler, but somewhere between NeoOffice and Apple's native ODT handler for OS X.
I'm thinking it's the brief installation of OOo3 earlier today which caused this issue, supported by the following small snippets I found via Google:
http://eric.bachard.free.fr/news/2008/03/quicklook-on-leopard.html – from the notes here, it sounds like OOo3 may be doing some tricky stuff with the "qlmanager" command under OS X, which may or may not result in persistent system changes affecting NeoOffice as well.
So, at the very least, you've got a heads-up that even briefly installing and running OOo3 may result in lingering QuickLook-related problems for some ODT files, which users may blame on NeoOffice. (Though I'm still hoping you can help me fix it somehow!) _________________ Open – It Matters!
Have you tried installing NeoOffice 2.2.5 (the latest version)? Usually, but not always, the last application with a QuickLook handler becomes the default handler.
I'd deleted and reinstalled NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 1 (from the original installer disk images) prior to making my original post. Just now I repeated the process again, rebooted, and confirmed that QuickLook still fails to work properly for ODT files not created by NeoOffice. (And every time I delete the NeoOffice app, QuickLook starts working again for those files.) _________________ Open – It Matters!
I'd deleted and reinstalled NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 1 (from the original installer disk images) prior to making my original post. Just now I repeated the process again, rebooted, and confirmed that QuickLook still fails to work properly for ODT files not created by NeoOffice. (And every time I delete the NeoOffice app, QuickLook starts working again for those files.)
I wonder if the problem is that there is something wrong with your machines "unzip" Terminal command. NeoOffice's QuickLook handler uses that command to inspect the .odt file and if that command does not exist or is outputting errors, that might explain the problem.
Can you launch the /Applications/Utilities/Terminal application, copy the following command and paste it into the Terminal window, type a space character and the absolute path to your .odt file after the pasted command, and press the Return key. What output do you get? Note: to type the absolute path to a file on your Desktop (let's call it myfile.odt), you would type a space and then ~/Desktop/myfile.odt after the pasted command:
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:33 am Post subject:
Something may have also changed in Leopard itself. Our QL plugin locates the Apple bundle by its name on disk, and they very well may have changed that name.
In the setup where you have everything working, can you do the following in a Terminal and post the output:
Code:
qlmanage -m
That will print out the list of translators that are recognized on your system for QuickLook.
OUr generator, for odt documents, does the following steps in order:
Search for PDF thumbnail. If exists, display that.
Attempt to load Apple ODT QL generator. If it loads successfully and generates results without error, display that.
Search for PNG thumbnail (OOo generates this by default). If exists, display that.
Don't return any results for display.
If any of those steps fail, it will go to the fallback for the next one.
Ed – Unfortunately, when I uninstalled NeoOffice again and rebooted, suddenly no ODT files would preview in QuickLook – all I would get was a completely blank document icon! I haven't installed any updates or made any system changes since last time, so I have no idea why it no longer works. Unfortunately this means the results of my "qlmanage -m" command won't help you anymore.
After doing a lot of reading, I did manage to get my test ODT file to preview in QuickLook via the following Terminal command:
Unfortunately, this didn't restore QuickLook functionality when previewing as normal via the Finder.
Does that help? If not, is there possibly a plist file for qlmanage settings which I can try to restore from my Time Machine backup, to get things working the way they were before? _________________ Open – It Matters!
This clearly shows that Bean does not include either NeoOffice's PDF thumbnail nor OOo's PNG thumbnail, so NeoPeek (NeoOffice's QuickLook plugin) should attempt to use Apple's QuickLook generator, and if that fails, return nothing.
SpadeAceman wrote:
Ed – Unfortunately, when I uninstalled NeoOffice again and rebooted, suddenly no ODT files would preview in QuickLook – all I would get was a completely blank document icon! I haven't installed any updates or made any system changes since last time, so I have no idea why it no longer works. Unfortunately this means the results of my "qlmanage -m" command won't help you anymore.
qlmanage -m seems to display a list of UTI types and the associated QL generator, so it could be useful even if .odt preview is broken. Can you run that command, and tell us which QuickLook generator is used for org.oasis-open.opendocument.text?
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 10:02 am Post subject:
The other key is to get that qlmanage -m list to list the UTI types. We do force load Apple's Text QL Generator out of that exact path, so I'm thinking that something is causing that Text QL Generator to fail, both from our invocation and the Finder.
qlmanage -m will list what your system thinks the current UTI types that it recognizes are. I suspect something may have changed in the behaviour of Mac OS X. Originally, if Mac OS X or Apple libraries defined UTI type mappings, those would be preserved. I suspect this may have changed and it's using our app specific UTI types instead of the system ones.
To test Ed's theory that Apple made a change in Mac OS X 10.5.5, Ed has modified the UTI types in both our Spotlight and Quick Look plugins and I have posted the following NeoOffice test patch with his changes. Can you install the following test patch and tell us if there is any change in the QuickLook rendering or the qlmanage command output?:
Very strange – after I first applied the patch, I was getting the blank file icon instead of the preview. I rebooted my machine, and now I'm instead getting the NeoOffice Text icon for the same file in QuickLook.
For the most part, it seems to have reverted to displaying the default file icon of whatever program created the file (NeoOffice for some, the blank icon for others created via Bean), though it's not consistent.
I can still execute the manual "qlmanage -p" command I listed in my previous post, but that's the only thing that shows the file contents anymore. Even the ODS files I have no longer preview the contents, showing only the file icon.
This was the result of "qlmanage -m" prior to my last post (before I reinstalled NeoOffice) – note that "org.oasis-open.opendocument.text" is pointing to the exact same location that works when I invoke it manually on the command line, yet it still failed to work when I invoked QuickLook via the Finder:
…and this is the result after reinstalling NeoOffice (2.2.5 patch 1), and also after applying the test patch (unfortunately, I didn't save the results of "qlmanage -m" from immediately prior to installing the test patch, so I can't compare to those results):
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:14 pm Post subject:
Whatever you did in that patch, you need to revert it. After installing Patch 2 Test 1, I get the same results as SapceAceman: when selecting an .odt (or .ods, etc.) file in the Finder, and pressing space, all I get is the icon for the document type. So it basically makes your QuickLook plugin useless.
Also, I'm using 10.5.5, so if Apple really did change something in that release, it would probably have affected me, as well as anyone else who uses 10.5.5 here. But I was not suffering from this issue.
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I haven't installed any updates or made any system changes since last time, so I have no idea why it no longer works. Unfortunately this means the results of my "qlmanage -m" command won't help you anymore.