Archives support

Joachim Vokurka · Post by **Joachim Vokurka** » 2003 Feb 25, 11:29

Hello,

there is excellent program 7Zip. Under GPL, provides DLL for common archives handling
and many more.
http://www.7-zip.org/

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Feb 25, 19:00

thanks for that

unfortunately there's more to managing archives than being able to read or write into them. From win2000 onwards zipfolders are a system service. I wouldn't be looking into rewriting all the functionality from scratch

Floodland · Post by **Floodland** » 2003 Oct 29, 01:20

nikos wrote:thanks for that

unfortunately there's more to managing archives than being able to read or write into them. From win2000 onwards zipfolders are a system service. I wouldn't be looking into rewriting all the functionality from scratch

windows zipfolders doesn't work good, it's slow and can handle zip files only.
I really like xplorer2, but my normal operation includes managing rar, zip, and sometimes ace files. I know it's easy to use the windows service, but, is not (and will not be) optimal, or the only format to support (zip).
Initially you could make a way to list the files/folders inside, and when trying to copy, delete, add or any modification to the archive, then use the appropiate external application, with correct parameters, you can do whatever you want. So, the time to implement such features will not be too much... Total commander used to work that way before including internal support.
By now, 7zip works pretty good, support major formats and is freeware...

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2003 Oct 29, 04:59

I am out of my depth here, but how about this freeware http://www.ultimatezip.com/?

I have used it, and performancewise it is similar to the familiar winzip. But it can handle more file types that either Win Zip or 7zip.

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Oct 29, 08:20

personally i can't see why there's a need for more than 1 archive format. All of them offer comparable compression. When NTFS is used, there's no need for archives altogether, since individual folders can be compressed saving space while maintaining normal access to the contents. Perhaps there's a case for changing old habits taking advantage of "new" ways of managing files!

Morning Star · Post by **Morning Star** » 2003 Oct 30, 00:58

There are a number of good reason to still use archives. For one, 7zip (and rar, for example) offer compression up to twice what zip can offer. Secondly, an archive is a logical collection of files, even more so than a directory, probably because of the extra step necessary to access the files individually (which is why I don't use zipfolders). Thirdly, when copying NTFS compressed folders to some non-NTFS drive (floppy, CD, network), the files are no longer compressed. Finally, you can password protect archives of almost all types.

That said, I don't agree that x2 should natively support multi-format archives natively, partly because of my belief that zipfolders is a counter-intuitive way to access archives, but mostly because x2 is a general file manager, not a specialised archive manager...

mimeryme · Post by **mimeryme** » 2003 Oct 30, 02:06

Well said Morning Star.

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Oct 30, 08:57

offer compression up to twice what zip can offer

For "normal" compression, I never saw differences more than 5-10%. Perhaps you are referring to "advanced" compressions, of the sort you have to wait ages to complete

(i sure wished we had "rarfolders" instead of zipfolders)

I can't argue with the floppy/CDROM problem. Archives will always be important for bringing stuff in or taking out of the PC. But once in the PC, in the normal day-to-day management, why not use regular folders? Storage isn't an issue these days with 100GB hard disks!

vserghi · Post by **vserghi** » 2003 Oct 30, 09:12

I have a works laptop that I use for callibration purposes. My data files can get into the MB range sometimes. Storage capacity is a limiting factor when the laptop only get 10-20GB hardrives.

Archiving is an essential part of keeping files as small as possible. Even storage on our network drives is getting limited due to over capacity. We are constantly asked to remove or archive/zip up files that are still needed there.

Don't underestimate the use of zipping up files. As for rar files as oposed to zip, well we don't get a choice unfortunately, its WinZip or nothing.

Jaykul · Post by **Jaykul** » 2003 Oct 30, 17:10

I say keep using the built in stuff when you can, and since .zip is by far the most common format in the windows world, you're golden. 7z's maximum "solid" archives are by far the best compression I've seen (the closest thing is .cab or .rar's solid formats) however, being able to brwose into them is fairly useless since you can't modify them, only unpack and then create a new archive.

What I'd like to see is the ability to add custom application command-lines to the tools menu and a 'tool' toolbar which I could drag-and-drop to.

PS:
http://www.zipgenius.it is the best free compression tool I've found, handles tons of formats including .iso and .nrg ... Have you seen that http://www.foobar2000.org can handle playing media files with extraction on-the-fly from RAR, 7-ZIP & ZIP archives?

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Oct 30, 18:32

well you can also directly play stuff from x2's zipfolders, as well as preview thumbnails, the full works

the tool menu you are after is already available -- minus the drag-drop
just use the command history <Ctrl+F10> to launch whatever you want, with optional $ tokens for arguments