OS X Leopard Tip #26
Here is a list of “must have” plugins for OS X Leopard that extend its usability and your productivity.

Quick Look – is an amazing time saver that allows your to view files without having to open them in their associated application. Not having to wait for the application to launch jut to see the file is fantastic for your productivity. These free plugins extend Quick Look for more file types and allow you to peer into folders and zip files.

  • Folders Plugin – view the contents of folders.
  • Zip Plugin – view the contents of zip files.
  • BetterZip Quick Look Generator – preiew ZIP, TAR, GZip, BZip2, ARJ, LZH, ISO, CHM, CAB, CPIO, RAR, 7-Zip, DEB, RPM, StuffIt’s SIT, DiskDoubler, BinHex, and MacBinary.
  • Flash Plugin – view Flash media files (requires Perian to be installed).
  • EPS Plugin – view EPS files.
  • Suspicious Package – preview the contents of a standard Apple installer package without launching the Installer or using Show Package Contents from the contextual menu.

These Quick Look Plugins will be useful to anyone working with these file formats:

  • QuarkXPress Plugin – preview QuarkXPress 7 files.
  • QuickChm – is a quicklook plugin which lets you preview a CHM (compiled html) archive.

    • ColorXML – preview XML files with indentation and XML syntax coloring.

  • JEFview – previews JEF files a proprietary file format for patterns (Janome Embroidery Format).
  • C64 Images – allows you to view several graphic formats such as Koala, Amica Paint, FLI Designer, Drazlace V1, Fun Painter 2, and more.
  • AppleScript plugin – preview AppleScript script files.
  • HetimaClipping.qlgenerator – Cover Flow and Quick Look plugin for text clipping file (.textClipping). and picture clipping file (.pictClipping).
  • SneakPeek Pro – this plugin costs $5 and allows for previewing Illustrator, InDesign, EPS and Freehand documents.
  • QLEnscript – produces colorized output for the following languages: Objective-C/C++, C/C++, Perl, Python, Java, Shell scripts and Assembly language.
  • QuickLook in TextMate – previews (for certain filetypes) using the TextMate syntax highlighter. Currently it’s configured to highlight Perl, PHP, Ruby, Shell, C headers and Obj-C(++). Requires TextMate.
  • Illustrator plugin – preview Illustrator files.
  • Brainsight QuickLook – allows preview of medical images in the MINC1, MINC2, DICOM, and NIfTI file formats.
  • SCR – preview standard Spectrum SCR files, and also the enhanced Timex modes.

Note: To install QuickLook plugins, you simply copy the plugin into /Library/QuickLook/ or ~/Library/QuickLook/.

QuickTime Plugins – will extend the types of video (and audio) you Mac can playback. These plugins are a “must have” to playback some video formats not supported on the Mac by Microsoft.

  • Perian – The “swiss army knife for QuickTime” adds the following codecs to QuickTime – AVI, FLV (Flash Video), MKV, “MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio […] AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3?. There is not much that Perian can not play. when you download and install, a preference pane in your System Prefences has settings that allow for Perian to check for updates automatically and adjust audio settings.
  • Flip4Mac WMV – Microsoft stopped supporting the Windows Media Player and now recommends Flip4Mac to allow for Windows Media to play within QuickTime.

Safari Browser plugins – Some of these free browser plugins are essential to playback certain types of media and some will even extend your browser’s use.

  • FlashPlayer – Make sure you have the latest FlashPlayer from Adobe for your Intel or PPC Mac.
  • RealPlayer – Allows for Real Video to play on your Mac and download Flash videos.
  • Inquisitor – adds live predictive searching to Safari. This replaces the current search bar functionality with a fast live-search style drop down. Start typing your search, and the list appears with possible queries.

See Pimp My Safari for more useful plugins.

Mail, Address Book and iCal – plugins and add-ons can be very useful.

  • GMail Notifier – loads a small envelope icon into the menubar. A drop-down menu allows you to monitor your Google Calendar, poll your Gmail account for new mail, jump to your inbox or to the compose window.
  • TNEF’s Enough – decodes attachments from Outlook users that arrive unreadable and named “winmail.dat”. Simply save the winmail.dat file to the Desktop, launch TNEF’s Enough and open the winmail.dat file from the utility’s File menu.

See this great list at Hawk Wings for many more.

System-wide – plugins or add-ons can automate and save you time.

  • Growl – notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.
  • TextExpander (USD 29.95) – third-party Preference Pane add-on that stores snippets of texts and graphics, and user-defined short cuts for them. This allows you to save enormous amounts of time by storing often-repeated text samples and then inserting them in your documents, mail or other files. With a few key strokes you can enter anything from a URL, address, HTML, or paragraphs of “boiler-plate” text. Great for filling out forms.
  • InstantShot!, free – makes taking screenshots easier by putting the functionality right on your menu-bar.
  • Ziplight, free – use Spotlight to find files within zip archives.

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