README.TXT for ARCHIVE VIEWER A '|' in the left-most column is used to indicate changes to this file since the previous release. This does not include simple formatting changes. The Archive Viewer is a very simple GUI tool for viewing and extracting archive files of various types. It cannot create archives, nor is this ever planned as a feature. (This program is not intended to compete with commercial archive managers which do allow this.) The Archive Viewer can handle the following types of archive file: * ZIP archives (*.zip) * Unix-style tape archives (*.tar), including those which have been compressed with 'compress' (*.tar.Z), 'gzip' (*.tar.gz, *.tgz) or 'bzip2' (*.tar.bz2) * RAR archives (*.rar) * ARJ archives (*.arj) * JAR archives (*.jar) NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 2 Version 2.x boasts a number of new features. First of all, the entire program has been rewritten from scratch. Version 1 was one of my first REXX programming efforts, and I've learned a lot since then. Most significantly, the program is now multi-threaded. Listing and extracting archive contents are both now done in separate threads. This should prevent the Workplace Shell from going unresponsive when opening a very large archive. (I do NOT guarantee that your system won't slow to a crawl; it still might, since reading archive files can be quite CPU intensive. But at least it won't block your input queue while doing so.) The file extraction dialog is much improved. You can now select a directory from a list, and browse through your drives. You can also select to open the target folder in the WPS after extraction. The program handles missing archive programs more gracefully, and error handling in general is more robust. Encrypted RAR and ARJ files are now supported. Java JAR files (which are, after all, just a kind of ZIP file) are also supported. Multilingual support is now more intelligent. Upon initialization, ARCVIEW.EXE sets the language used for both UI and online help according to the current value of the LANG environment variable. The files used for language support are named 'ARCV_xx.MSG' (for the UI) and 'ARCV_xx.HLP' (for help), where 'xx' is the first two characters of the LANG variable. If no such file is found for the current LANG, English will be used as the default. REQUIREMENTS Software: * Either eComStation 1.1 or higher, or any version of OS/2 Warp if the VX-REXX runtime library (VROBJ.DLL) is installed. * The following programs available somewhere in your PATH: o InfoZip UNZIP.EXE Required for ZIP and JAR support o GNU TAR.EXE Required for TAR, TAR.GZ and TAR.BZ2 support o GNU GZIP.EXE Required for TAR.GZ support o GNU COMPRESS.EXE Required for TAR.Z support o BZIP2.EXE Required for TAR.BZ2 support o ARJ.EXE Required for ARJ support o UNRAR.EXE or RAR32.EXE Required for RAR support UNZIP.EXE, TAR.EXE, and GZIP.EXE are included by default with eCS version 1.1 and higher. Most of the above programs are available on Hobbes as well. If you want to use BZIP2, I suggest using either the 1.0.2 port by Brian Havard (available on the eComStation BetaZone) or the more recent 1.0.3 (on Hobbes). See the note under 'GENERAL LIMITATIONS' for details. If any of these programs is not present, you will still be able to use the Archive Viewer, but not for the corresponding type of archive file. Hardware: * A Pentium processor or higher is recommended, although in theory the software should run on any 386/486 CPU supported by OS/2. * 16 MB or more of RAM is strongly recommended. I have not actually tested the program on any system with less than 32 MB. INSTALLATION From WarpIn Package: You are assumed to have WarpIn installed. Double-click on the Archive Viewer package and use the GUI to install. The default install path lies under either \ecs or \usr on your boot drive, but you can install to any directory you like. Your CONFIG.SYS should be updated with the correct paths by the installer. Any files from old versions of the Archive Viewer which are located under the target path(s) will be deleted automatically. This includes the old version 1.x configuration file (ARCVIEW.INI); the settings will not be migrated. An icon for Archive Viewer will be created under the 'Utilities' folder ('Productivity' on Warp 3). From ZIP File: If you are installing the Archive Viewer from a ZIP file distribution, unpack the files into a temporary directory (you've probably done this already). Place ARCVIEW.EXE into a directory on your PATH, ARCV_*.HLP into a directory on your HELP path, and ARCV_*.MSG into a directory on your DPATH. To replace earlier versions of the Archive Viewer which are included with eComStation 1.1 or 1.2: * Replace the existing \ecs\bin\arcview.exe with the new arcview.exe * Delete \ecs\lang\arcview.msg and copy arcv_*.msg into \ecs\lang * Delete \ecs\help\arcview.hlp and copy arcv_*.hlp into \ecs\help (These directories are located on your system boot drive.) If you don't already have a program object for arcview.exe, you should create one, associated with the appropriate filename filters for ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ/TGZ, TAR.BZ2, RAR, ARJ and/or JAR files. GENERAL LIMITATIONS * When extracting an archive, files with the same name that already exist in the destination path will be overwritten automatically. * The Archive Viewer _only_ supports COMPRESS, GZIP or BZIP2 compression when it's been used to compress TAR archives. Single (non-archive) files which have been compressed with any of these programs are not supported. (The reason for this restriction is that none of these programs supports a table of contents; they're simple, single-file compression programs, and not archivers per se.) * The programs used to handle archives (UNZIP.EXE, TAR.EXE, etc.) and their parameters are hard-coded. There is no way for the user to add support for new archive types (sorry!). * Some versions of BZIP2.EXE are incompatible with ArcView because they do not properly support piping. Specifically, versions which are statically linked with the EMX libraries appear to exhibit this problem. Versions which are dynamically linked against EMX should be fine, as should those compiled with any of the IBM C compilers. * When extracting archives into a directory which does not exist, that target directory will be created automatically, but ONLY if its immediate parent directory already exists. In other words, only one new directory level can be created automatically. TODO Future features under consideration: * EXE files are presently assumed to be self-extracting ZIP archives. More intelligent file-type detection may be implemented in the future. * An option to open the target directory using your preferred file manager, instead of the WPS, after extraction. * Support for .Z, .GZ and .BZIP2 files without TAR. * Support for WarpIN packages. I'm looking tentatively at adding support for additional archive types, | such as 7Zip, LZH/LHA and PACK/PACK2. But I make no promises and give | no timetables. LICENSE As of version 2.0, the Archive Viewer is open source software licensed under the GPL (see below). Full source code is available from the author's | web site: http://www.socis.ca/~ataylo00/programming/os2/ ArcView - Simple Archive Viewer for OS/2 and eComStation (C) 2009 Alex Taylor This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA The full text of the GPL is located in the online help file. -- | Alex Taylor, January 2009