IDL Language Definition for QLColorCode

A language definition file for Interactive Data Language (IDL) to facilitate generating syntax-highlighted previews of IDL source files.

If - like me - you're a Mac OS X user who does a lot of programming in IDL, you've probably been annoyed by the fact that Quick Look doesn't display previews for IDL source files. The QLColorCode plugin by Nathan Gray uses GNU Highlight to generate syntax-highlighted previews of most types of source code. However, it currently has no support for IDL (by default it treats files with the .pro extension as Prolog, leading to incorrect syntax highlighting).

I've written a language definition file for IDL that can be used with the QLColorCode plugin to generate previews of IDL source files with the 'correct' syntax highlighting.

Requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. See below for installation instructions.

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Installing

If you don't already have the QLColorCode plugin, download it and follow the installation instructions. Click the download link above to get the IDL language definition file (if the file appears in your browser window then save it as plain text). To install the language definition file:

1. in the Finder, navigate to the directory where you installed the QLColorCode plugin (either /Library/Quicklook/ or ~/Library/Quicklook/);
2. control-click on the QLColorCode plugin and choose "Show Package Contents" from the context menu;
3. once inside the plugin, navigate to Contents/Resources/override/langDefs/ and place the language definition file in this folder.

If you just installed QLColorCode for the first time, you may need to log out and back in again for the plugin to be activated.

Following these instructions will override the default behaviour of the plugin, which is fine if you never use Prolog. If you want to support both languages then it's slightly more complicated. Contact me using the feedback link if you need help with this.