tkArchive 0.2 11/2/98 Ethan Gold Overview: --------- tkArchive is (will be) a comprehensive GUI interface to the most common file (not tape - not now, anyway) archives under found on Un*x systems. In simple tcl/tk based GUI it will provide a front-end to listing, compressing, and extracting entire archives and components of archives. Features (now and planned): --------- * Takes filename as an argument - great as a filemanager or metamail helper * Takes multiple filenames as arguments * Can run standalone and open archives from within itself * Create archives * Append to archives * View contents of file in an archive * Not a cluttered mess (the GUI, that is. no comment on the code.) Supported Archives: ------------------- tar + gzip now + compress now + bzip2 now zip soon cpio ? sit ? arc ? arj ? hqx ? lha ? lzh ? Currently Supported Operations: ------------------------------- Right now only listing, extraction, viewing files, save as, close, and open are supported. In the next few weeks I will add compression support, appending support, and the modules for the other archive types. See the structure section below. Right now only GNU tar is supported. Supporting older tar's would probably require a separate plugin and handling due to their basic stupidity regarding compression and options. Architecture: ------------- tkArchive is built as a main front-end providing the main GUI and file handling routines. Native language (tcl) plugins provide the support for individual archive types. The plugins are simply scripted interfaces to specific command-line programs which export (the plugins export) an API to the main GUI. Requirements: ------------- * Tcl/Tk 8.0 or newer * GNU Tar for tar archives * gzip for anything gzip'd or compressed * bzip2 for bzip2 archives * a launching such as http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~etgold/launcher.tar.gz for opening files inside archives tkArchive will run without the backend gzip or gzip or even tar utilities - its design is such that it doesn't really care. The only problem is that it will go ahead and disable support for those file types if it can't find them. Bugs, Suggestions, etc.: ------------------------ Email the author, Ethan Gold, at etgold@cs.columbia.edu The more file formats tkArchive can handle, the better. If you want to write a plugin for your favorite type of archive, let me know! Acknowledgements: ----------------- Thanks to Mario Jorge Silva for his fileselect code which I've hacked to pieces.