Since Illustrator CS, the .ai files are "pdf compatible" by default.
And there's a lowres bitmap preview in the default EPS format...

Note: if you drag an EPS onto Preview (the Apple app) it convert the EPS into a PDF file.
So, maybe the Schubert's plugin do the same...

FWIW, I am fairly certain that Preview can open Photoshop documents — maybe PDF Browser can as well? (Not being a graphic designer, I cannot test any of these claims.)

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Better question from a graphic designer, why is the Schuebert plug-in still a plug-in and not a default feature of safari?

I've known about all of this for a while now just never thought to submit it as a hint. I've found that the plug-n will almost open anything saved from Photoshop or Illustrator that is not already handled by the browser.

As a graphic designer, I almost never use preview. I can see where it would be useful but when you have apps for all of the major graphics formats it hard to find reason to use preview. I still think it's a nifty little app and find myself messing with on occasion.

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"real skill comes without effort..." Li Mu Bai - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Even better, why not just merge Preview into Safari? Seems logical....

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"real skill comes without effort..." Li Mu Bai - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

i still work with version 10 and with those it won't work but if you have panther and want a quick look at what the illustrator file looks like without having to start-up illustrator then select the file in the finder and then get info (CMMD-I) and expand the preview by clicking it's triangle, it wil show a .. preview

I would like this to work for me, but for me what happens when I try to view an AI CS file online (saved with "PDF compatibility" on), is Schubert plugin says "Converting Postscript to PDF" and then I finally just get an empty, blue page in Schubert.

I think the problem could be that my web host (Dreamhost) might have the Mime type for .ai set to postscript instead of PDF. So in an .htaccess file I put the line "AddType application/pdf .ai".

This worked, in that Schubert now displays the AI files as PDFs directly, and the content is rendered successfully. So maybe this can be a helpful hint for others.

BUT the problem is that if I do want to download the file to disk, either by right-clicking on the link in the first place, or by using the "save" button in Schubert, with this new .htaccess in place Safari now converts the file extension to .pdf upon downloading it! So instead of the original file "filename.ai" as stored online, what gets downloaded to my desktop is "filename.pdf".

I could then rename the file back to .ai on my desktop after it's downloaded, but that's too confusing my users. I want them to be able to choose to either view in-browser or download/manipulate these AI files, in the same way as you would do it if it was a JPEG or something.

Does anyone know how to resolve this, so Schubert sees the file as PDF content, but Safari will maintain the .ai suffix when downloading it to disk? This is Safari 1.3, Schubert plugin 2.0.1, in Panther 10.3.9.