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Electron: How to Detect Quick Look Window Close After previewFile Called?

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Electron: How to Detect Quick Look Window Close After previewFile Called?

Have you ever used Electron's previewFile function to display a Quick Look window for file previews? It's a handy feature that allows users to get a glimpse of a file's content without having to open a separate application. However, one common challenge developers face is detecting when the Quick Look window is closed after calling previewFile. In this article, we will explore a solution to this problem and help you handle the window close event.

When you call previewFile, Electron creates a new BrowserWindow to display the Quick Look window. However, there is no built-in event or callback to detect when this window is closed. To overcome this limitation, we can leverage Electron's inter-process communication (IPC) mechanism to communicate between the main process and the Quick Look window.

First, let's modify the code where you call previewFile to pass a unique identifier for the window:

  const { ipcMain, BrowserWindow } = require('electron');

  ipcMain.on('windowClosed', (event, windowId) => {
    // Handle Quick Look window close event
    console.log(`Quick Look window with ID ${windowId} closed.`);
  });

  const windowId = 'uniqueWindowId'; // Generate a unique ID for each preview window
  const filePath = '/path/to/file.ext';

  const quickLookWindow = new BrowserWindow({ show: false });
  quickLookWindow.loadURL(`file://${filePath}`);
  quickLookWindow.on('closed', () => {
    // Communicate the window close event to the main process
    mainWindow.webContents.send('windowClosed', windowId);
  });

  quickLookWindow.show();
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In the code snippet above, we have added an event listener in the main process to handle the window close event. We also pass the unique window ID to the Quick Look window via the loadURL function. When the Quick Look window is closed, we use Electron's IPC mechanism to send a message back to the main process, indicating the window close event along with the window ID.

Back in the main process, we listen for this message using ipcMain.on and handle the window close event accordingly. In our example, we simply log a message to the console, but you can perform any necessary actions.

By implementing this approach, you can now detect when the Quick Look window is closed after calling previewFile. Remember to generate a unique window ID for each preview window, so you can differentiate between them in the main process.

Conclusion

Handling the Quick Look window close event in Electron can be challenging, but with the help of Electron's IPC mechanism, we can overcome this limitation. By passing a unique window ID and using IPC to communicate the window close event, developers can effectively detect when the Quick Look window is closed after calling previewFile. So go ahead, give it a try, and never miss a Quick Look window close event again!

References

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