I found this little gem of a program the other day and just wanted to share it with you all!

It’s no secret that Mac OSX has one of the most streamlined and usable desktop interfaces around, which is why it’s features are so often emulated on other platforms. Gloobus-Preview, a new program from sole developer Jordi Hernàndez does just that by offering up a powerful new plug-in for Ubuntu in the same vein as OSX’s Quick Look. The end result is a sleek little program that’s not only helpful and convenient, but sure to impress your tech-savvy friends.

How to Install:

(Note: this is still a very young program so you might have to get your hands slightly dirty to get this one working. Don’t worry though; we got this program up and running just fine by following these steps:)

PPA doesn’t yet exist for this program (don’t worry – It’s on it’s way!) so you’re going to have to grab your deb files from Jordi’s DeviantArt Page

Hit the download link on the left side of the page and save the tarball file to your computer.

Extract the contents of the file.

Extract the contents of the new file again (doubly-wrapped; I know).

You will now see two deb files, one for 64 bit systems, and one for 32 bit systems. Choose the appropriate deb for your computer and run it.

The program is now installed. To preview a file, select it, then press CTRL+C followed immediately by CTRL+V. This will bring up the preview window. Pressing the directional keys will move your preview window focus on to the next item in your folder. Press ENTER to run the file normally, or press SPACE to close the preview.

If the keyboard shortcuts did not work, no worries; we’ll sort that out here with the solutions below.

First select the file you’d like the preview and press CTRL+C. Then, to make sure the program is installed, open up a terminal and run the command “gloobus-preview” (minus the quotations).

A preview window should pop-up at this point. If it does, congratulations! This means the program is installed and we just need to fix the keybinds. If it doesn’t, try reinstalling the program from the deb.

To set up the appropriate keybinds:

Open up a terminal and input these two commands:

gconftool-2 -s –type string /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_1 “gloobus-preview”
gconftool-2 -s –type string /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_1 “space”

Try to run the program again at this point by using the keyboard shortcuts. If it works, you’re finished. If not; proceed below.

If you are running Compiz, you may have to enable “Commands” for the program to work.

To enable commands, enter Compiz Setting Manager and under “General” you’ll see “Commands.” Click the check box next to “Commands” to enable it.

Now click on the “Commands” button itself. This will open up the “Commands” options.

On the first tab, make sure Command Line 0 is set to “gloobus-preview,” (minus the quotations).

On the second tab, entitled Key Bindings, make sure Run command 0 is enabled and set to “<Control>space” (minus the quotations).

Close all Compiz windows and test your new keybinds out. If all went to plan, Gloobus should be accessible from the keyboard shortcuts.

If it still isn’t, double check to make sure your metacity keybinds are correct.

Open up a terminal and type in “gconf-editor” (minus the quotations). This will bring up a gui for all your system commands. Follow:

gconf-editor>apps>metacity>keybinding_commands> and make sure command_1 says gloobus-preview

As long as your keybinds are correct for metacity and compiz, this program will run. You could set this up for just about any key you wanted through compiz, including mouse binds and screen corner binds.

This program is one to watch and has a whole host of great features under development. If you like it, be sure to support it’s developer and vote for it’s inclusion into Ubuntu on it’s Ubuntu Brainstorm page

Gloobus-Preview at Launchpad:https://launchpad.net/gloobus

Gloobus Homepage: http://gloobus.wordpress.com/

Hey if you liked this post, please share it with someone! Please use one of the share links on this page.

Tags: Gloobus Preview, Ubuntu

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 12:12 am and is filed under Technology, Ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.