7-Zip

As far as I can tell from doing a few experiments with 7-Zip,
reading the documentation that comes with it, and browsing a
few pages of the 7-Zip Support forum at SourceForge, 7-Zip
entirely lacks an absolutely basic feature of WinZip, which
is essential for saving and restoring complex structures of
files and directories (folders): namely, that you can add to
a specified archive any specified set of files together with
all its path information. This seems especially odd, as 7-Zip
is perfectly capable of understanding the directory structure
of an archive created by WinZip. It displays the information
differently: whereas WinZip shows the path information in a
column headed "Path", 7-Zip shows directories as icons in its
own window, and gives a "flat" display of all the files and
directories in any directory you select, thus behaving rather
like a version of Windows Explorer (and indeed it is described
as a "File Manager", rather than a compression and archiving
utility).

I know I'm inclined to give up too easily, so am I missing
something here? Is it a question of reading more carefully
through all the documentation on the command-line version of
the program, with all its interacting options?

--
Angus Rodgers

On 02/24/2010 03:38 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:

As far as I can tell from doing a few experiments with 7-Zip,
reading the documentation that comes with it, and browsing a
few pages of the 7-Zip Support forum at SourceForge, 7-Zip
entirely lacks an absolutely basic feature of WinZip, which
is essential for saving and restoring complex structures of
files and directories (folders): namely, that you can add to
a specified archive any specified set of files together with
all its path information. This seems especially odd, as 7-Zip
is perfectly capable of understanding the directory structure
of an archive created by WinZip. It displays the information
differently: whereas WinZip shows the path information in a
column headed "Path", 7-Zip shows directories as icons in its
own window, and gives a "flat" display of all the files and
directories in any directory you select, thus behaving rather
like a version of Windows Explorer (and indeed it is described
as a "File Manager", rather than a compression and archiving
utility).

I know I'm inclined to give up too easily, so am I missing
something here? Is it a question of reading more carefully
through all the documentation on the command-line version of
the program, with all its interacting options?


Not sure about 7zip, since I gave up on it in one of its early
offerings due to some issues involved. Though what you describe was due
to requests by 7zip users IIRC. That type of display is also used in
WInRAR and several others.

I have to question why you don't/shouldn't use pkzip, ARC, LHA, ARJ,
RAR, Scrunch, Squeeze, U2, zoo, or one of the other older DOS based
compression archive programs. Newer versions [some] of those supported
long file names, *archival bits* [refresh if modified, add if new],
directory preservation, and other functions. You apparently aren't
creating these for use elsewhere [posting, ftp, etc.], so your concern
is local support and merely backups of files.
These would be/have been perfect for batch file usage, that is, unless
you need a graphical interface for some reason. Then again, there were
Windows or DOS GUI interface applications for those DOS tools [like Shez].

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:10:37 -0500, MEB wrote:

These would be/have been perfect for batch file usage, that is, unless
you need a graphical interface for some reason. Then again, there were
Windows or DOS GUI interface applications for those DOS tools [like Shez].

Yes, it struck me today, while perusing the 7-Zip documentation,
that my backup regime would be far better performed by writing a
few small batch files for a command-line programme rather than
using the graphical interface.

--
Angus Rodgers

On 02/24/2010 08:38 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:10:37 -0500, MEB wrote:

These would be/have been perfect for batch file usage, that is, unless
you need a graphical interface for some reason. Then again, there were
Windows or DOS GUI interface applications for those DOS tools [like Shez].

Yes, it struck me today, while perusing the 7-Zip documentation,
that my backup regime would be far better performed by writing a
few small batch files for a command-line programme rather than
using the graphical interface.


Yeah, that's what we used to do before "backup" programs and GUI became
so important.
If you do it, make two sets, one updated daily or whatever, and the
other bi-daily, bi-weekly, or whatever suits your purpose. Saves losing
anything except beyond whatever the second longer time-frame set holds.
Or do one for even days, one for odd, or similar.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

Angus Rodgers wrote in
:

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:10:37 -0500, MEB
wrote:

These would be/have been perfect for batch file usage, that is,
unless
you need a graphical interface for some reason. Then again, there were
Windows or DOS GUI interface applications for those DOS tools [like
Shez].

Yes, it struck me today, while perusing the 7-Zip documentation,
that my backup regime would be far better performed by writing a
few small batch files for a command-line programme rather than
using the graphical interface.


I've used 7-Zip for years, works fine for my uses, but one glitch that I
haven't found a setting to correct.

To simply archive, there are 2 choices in the context menu- Add to Archive,
and Add to (folder name) Zip. Both actions create a double folder, the
archive name folder, and in it a identical subfolder with the actual folder
contents. I want to omit the double folder.

Have the other 7-Zip users here been able to fix this issue?

BTW, although there are ways to do it in 7-Zip, for multiple unzip, an
older version of Extract Now (ExtractNow 4.4.09-Moinvaziri) works very well
in W98. And to multiple archive, Simplyzip 1.1b60.1-Paehl works well.

ms

ms wrote:

I've used 7-Zip for years, works fine for my uses, but one glitch that I
haven't found a setting to correct.

To simply archive, there are 2 choices in the context menu- Add to Archive,
and Add to (folder name) Zip. Both actions create a double folder, the
archive name folder, and in it a identical subfolder with the actual folder
contents. I want to omit the double folder.

Have the other 7-Zip users here been able to fix this issue?


( I'm using 7-Zip version 4.42 on this machine. )
You can configure 7-Zip's context-menu. There is an option
to 'Extract Here' that you probably want to try for the archives
that give you folder-within-folder when you extract. (Note that
extracting archives that don't, will then place items in the same
folder and they will thus become mixed with other files and
folders you have there.)

Start the '7-Zip File Manager' [7zFM.exe]
(Menu) Tools : Options... :
(Tab) Plugins :
(Button) Options... :
(Tab) System :
(Field) Context menu items:

[V] Check the items you plan to use.


BTW, although there are ways to do it in 7-Zip, for multiple unzip, an
older version of Extract Now (ExtractNow 4.4.09-Moinvaziri) works very well
in W98. And to multiple archive, Simplyzip 1.1b60.1-Paehl works well.

ms

--
"Waiting to find out what price you have to pay
to get out of going through all these things twice."

Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

ms wrote:

I've used 7-Zip for years, works fine for my uses, but one glitch that I
haven't found a setting to correct.

To simply archive, there are 2 choices in the context menu- Add to Archive,
and Add to (folder name) Zip. Both actions create a double folder, the
archive name folder, and in it a identical subfolder with the actual folder
contents. I want to omit the double folder.

Have the other 7-Zip users here been able to fix this issue?


( I'm using 7-Zip version 4.42 on this machine. )
You can configure 7-Zip's context-menu. There is an option
to 'Extract Here' that you probably want to try for the archives
that give you folder-within-folder when you extract. (Note that
extracting archives that don't, will then place items in the same
folder and they will thus become mixed with other files and
folders you have there.)

Start the '7-Zip File Manager' [7zFM.exe]
(Menu) Tools : Options... :
(Tab) Plugins :
(Button) Options... :
(Tab) System :
(Field) Context menu items:

[V] Check the items you plan to use.


BTW, although there are ways to do it in 7-Zip, for multiple unzip, an
older version of Extract Now (ExtractNow 4.4.09-Moinvaziri) works very well
in W98. And to multiple archive, Simplyzip 1.1b60.1-Paehl works well.

ms

--
"Waiting to find out what price you have to pay
to get out of going through all these things twice."

Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

On 02/24/2010 08:38 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:10:37 -0500, MEB wrote:

These would be/have been perfect for batch file usage, that is, unless
you need a graphical interface for some reason. Then again, there were
Windows or DOS GUI interface applications for those DOS tools [like Shez].

Yes, it struck me today, while perusing the 7-Zip documentation,
that my backup regime would be far better performed by writing a
few small batch files for a command-line programme rather than
using the graphical interface.


Yeah, that's what we used to do before "backup" programs and GUI became
so important.
If you do it, make two sets, one updated daily or whatever, and the
other bi-daily, bi-weekly, or whatever suits your purpose. Saves losing
anything except beyond whatever the second longer time-frame set holds.
Or do one for even days, one for odd, or similar.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:10:37 -0500, MEB wrote:

These would be/have been perfect for batch file usage, that is, unless
you need a graphical interface for some reason. Then again, there were
Windows or DOS GUI interface applications for those DOS tools [like Shez].

Yes, it struck me today, while perusing the 7-Zip documentation,
that my backup regime would be far better performed by writing a
few small batch files for a command-line programme rather than
using the graphical interface.

--
Angus Rodgers

Angus Rodgers wrote:
As far as I can tell from doing a few experiments with 7-Zip,
reading the documentation that comes with it, and browsing a
few pages of the 7-Zip Support forum at SourceForge, 7-Zip
entirely lacks an absolutely basic feature of WinZip, which


Heck if 7-Zip does not do what you want
and Winzip does


then why not just use Winzip?