Where to get the Quicklook plugin now?

The Quicklook plugin now is available as a free download from here.

Why was it removed?

The Finder Quicklook plugin  for .flame and .flam3 files (included with Fractal Architect 2 in earlier versions) renders all of the Finder fractal thumbnails and renders the Quicklook previews for fractals on demand from the Finder.

With the submission of version 2.3.2, a critical bug fix update related to Mountain Lion specific code not working on Lion and Snow Leopard, Apple has decided to reject the entire app update because the Quicklook plugin’s helper app is not sandboxed. Testing shows that sandboxing the helper plugin prevents the Finder thumbnails and Quicklook previews for .flame and .flam3 from being rendered.

Fractal Architect 2 was sandboxed beginning with version 2.1 released in January 2012. The builtin Quicklook plugin’s helper app was not sandboxed as that prevented it from working.

New Default File type (.fa) for Fractal Architect files

Version 2.3 released 6 weeks ago provides a new default file type (.fa) for Fractal Architect files. This file type actually contains pre-rendered thumbnails and Quicklook previews for the fractal. (The pre-rendering is done when you create and edit the fractal(s) in the file. There is a pause when closing the app to pre-render any open file’s Quicklook previews.)

With this file type, the Quicklook plugin is not used, so for these files, the Finder thumbnails and Quicklook previews will still work as before.

How to Convert .flame/.flam3 files to .fa file format

On Snow Leopard and Lion just use File > Save As and set the file format to: Fractal Architect .fa file type.

On Mountain Lion, you must hold down the Option key to expose the Save As menu item  in the File menu.