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Wherein I pine for Apple's Preview, and Quick Open, but console myself by  installing Irfanview in Windows 8.



They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, I couldn't be any fonder of Apple's Preview application than I am right now, toying with Microsoft's "pieces o' eight" operating system. Preview is part of the Mac OS. Double clicking on PDFs, JPEGs, GIFs, TIFFs,, and 25 other image file types, automatically opens them in Preview. It's a cornerstone of the Macintosh User Interface. Users generally take it for granted -- until they don't have it anymore.

When I dove into the Linux distribution Ubuntu 12.04, it's slight Apple flavour blunted my Mac withdrawal symptoms. I didn't miss Preview because Ubuntu had Evince to open PDF files, and Image Viewer (Eye of Gnome) to open JPEGs, and GIFs:

Windows 8 has two, comparable Metro Modern apps: Windows Reader opens PDFs and XPS files (XPS is a Microsoft page description language, like Adobe's PostScript), and Windows Photos, which, at least opens JPEGs. They both open full screen, are butt-ugly, and have no obvious quit button (Alt-F4 works). Windows 8 has a desktop program called Windows Photo Viewer, and it's easy to change the default program associated with file types -- I select a file, right-click, and either, Open with > Choose default program... or, Properties > Opens with > Change, then pick from the list of installed applications -- but Windows Photo Viewer, can't play animated GIF files, and there's no built-in desktop application for PDF files. There's a free Adobe PDF viewer (uncheck the McAfee install), but a lot of Windows users swear by the freeware Foxit Reader, which I agree, is pretty darn good. But I wanted to solve the problem Preview-style, and in Windows, that means Irfanview.

Irfanview is a freeware "Swiss Army knife" image viewer. It handles 30 file formats out of the box, and using various plugins, can handle another 58 formats, including major audio, and video formats. It leaves Apple's Preview in the dust. The only comparable program I know of is the venerable Mac "Swiss Army knife" Graphic Converter, which can open at least 200 image formats, and export out to about 80.

The Irfanview homepage has two download links for the main program; either works, and installation is the same as any Windows program. During install, you have the option to make the program the default for the various file types it can open. I saved that for later to do on a case-by-case basis. Irfanview is greatly extended by plugins. The main plugin set should be installed after Irfanview. Follow the "Plugins" link on the home page's left sidebar. Just choose download option #1 -- one large EXE, and install as per usual.

To open PDF files, Irfanview needs another program, called Ghostscript, currently version 9.07. Irfanview is a 32-bit program, so you need to download, and install the 32-bit version of Ghostscript, whether your Windows is 32-bit, or 64-bit, like mine.

Then, if you didn't already set Irfanview as the default program to handle PDF files during installation,  it's as simple as right-clicking any PDF file, selecting Open with > Choose default program..., and selecting Irfanview from the list. Then all your PDFs, will have a distinctive "dead cat" icon -- bonus!

Still missing Apple's Quick Look

While Mac users will all be familiar with Preview -- it's kind of inescapable -- Apple's Quick Look feature isn't so obvious, but it's amazing: Select a JPEG file, a Quicktime movie, a PDF, an EXCEL document, a Photoshop file, an MP3 -- Wikipedia lists 27 file types -- and hit the spacebar -- instant preview. You have to see it to see how good a feature it is.

Turning on Windows 8's preview pane

This isn't anything like Apple's Quick Look, but it's as close as Windows out-of-th-box gets. A third-party commercial application -- maComfort -- promises to bring the Mac's best features to Windows, including Quick Look.

Click the downward pointer to expand the Ribbon (Control-F1).



On the left side of the Ribbon, click the "View" tab, then click on "Preview Pane." It works with JPEGS, GIFs, TXT, and HTML files. Pretty lame Microsoft!

Windows 8 is certainly more hardware-friendly

Microsoft claims Windows 8 features some real improvements, including faster boot, better battery life, and huge security improvements. I can vouch for the first two; The Pavilion g6, running Windows 8 boots fast -- about 11 seconds to the login screen, and shuts down fast as well. Battery life is surprisingly good -- it's six-cell battery is giving me about 4 hours, with Wi-Fi on, videos playing, running lots of applications. The HP Pavilion dv6000 was rated for almost two hours on a six-cell battery.