Robert's blog

I have just uploaded BetterZip's latest and greatest version 1.1.

New Features

• You can create archives in all four supported formats now: zip, tar, tgz, and tbz. Choose which format to use in the «Save File» panel. This also means that you can now save tar archives as zip files and vice versa.
• BetterZip can now open PKZip2 encrypted archives. Note: At this time you can not create or save encrypted files. When saving a previously encrypted file it will lose its password protection.
• BetterZip got its German localization. Großartig!
• BetterZip now lets you drop files and folders of all types on its icon. If one of the dropped items is not recognized as an archive, BetterZip will create a new archive and put all the dropped files and folders in it.
• A new preference option lets you set whether file-packages like applications (which are really folders, but you know that by now) should be expandable in the list or not. Such folders have their own icons instead of the generic folder icon.
• When dropping an archive inside an empty archive window, BetterZip wonders whether you really wanted to add it or whether you wanted to open the archive (which is more likely considering all users).

Changes

• If the archive contains only one top-level folder (like most zip files on Mac OS X), it is automatically expanded.
• When adding files to an archive BetterZip will show you how many files will be added during the operation. (To make you feel more comfortable when adding large folder hierarchies and BetterZip starts working like crazy).
• Temporary files created while working with an archive (e.g. viewing files) will be removed when closing an archive.
• When trying to view a file that no application currently handles, you will be asked with which program you wish to open the file.
• Adding files to an archive should be considerably faster now, especially large files. And no additional temporary space will be required.
• Empty BetterZip windows will be reused when opening archives or adding files by dropping them on the BetterZip icon.
• BetterZip now checks the free space on the destination drive before starting to extract files.

Bugs fixed

• In the last release BetterZip did not really produce clean archives when saving in one of the tar formats.
• Initial sorting did not work correctly.
• Tar files containing files with international characters were not handled correctly.
• BetterZip could crash when adding a file to the root of the archive, then pressing Cmd+W, and saving the file.
• BetterZip could crash when the replace-file-panel came up and one of the files had an empty modification date. Why a file date could be empty is unclear, but I am researching this further.
• The message in the replace-file-panel was misleading when adding files to an archive.

Some people asked me: "Why did you do that program? My Mac zips and unzips out of the box. Why would anyone pay for an additional zip program?" Good questions, indeed.

I bought my first Mac some two years ago and was really happy about the purchase. After a few days two things remained that I didn't like at all: The lack of an editor comparable to my favored Windows TextPad and that there was nothing like WinZip to handle my zip files on the Mac. I learned that for text editing, I should take a look at BBEdit and for zipping I could buy StuffIt Deluxe.

Well, I didn't like BBEdit at all, it just didn't fit into the lovely Aqua environment and everything about it felt plain wrong (remember, I was a switcher and didn't use it from ancient System 7 times). Fortunately, I ran across a new editor named TextMate by Allan Odgaard. I used it for a week or so and registered, because I saw that Allan was hacking away like crazy adding new, cool features on a weekly basis. Today TextMate is a complete, incredibly powerful, and polished all-purpose text editor. (No, this site is not sponsored by Mr. Odgaard. I just tell you about something I really, really like. That explains the many adjectives accompanying the words "text editor", doesn't it?)

So, then I took a look at StuffIt. Or better, I tried to take a look. Because they don't let you try their software without filling out endless forms. And it cost 79 bucks. What? For a zip program? What have they been smoking? I later saw it in action on a friend's PowerBook. And I knew I would have to write the real thing myself.

"Right", you say, "but that didn't answer the questions. Are you a politician in your day job?" (Ha, the day job thing is a repeating theme, I just realize. I don't know whether that means something. Maybe I'll analyze that in my next blog post when I propose my day job could be that of a psychiatrist.)

What was the question? Okay, how do you unzip on the Mac without some extra program (available for as little as $19.95, but feel free and use the $79 version available at some other site)?

You just double-click the zip file. That will extract the whole archive to a newly created folder. Then you search through the folder to find your precious spacer.gif (corporate controlling staff, please read budget.xls), copy it to your new project folder, and delete the rest of the 298 MB extracted stuff from your last web project (production-cost-scenario-whatever). This whole operation does not take more than 10 minutes or so. You could also double-click the zip file, in one second see the contents of the zip file in BetterZip's window, enter spacer in the search box (2 sec), drag the spacer to your project folder (6 sec), and close the BetterZip window (1 sec). Takes approx. 10 seconds, or if you listen to Judas Priest while doing this, 5 seconds. The other 9 minutes and 50 seconds you just saved you could use to read my blog. A win-win situation, marketing strategists say. Now, if you repeat that process 78 times a day (like I do), you can save yourself more than - calculating ... calculating ... calculating ... ping - 12 hours a day. Hmmm, maybe I dont repeat that process 78 times a day, or one of the other numbers is not quite accurate, but you get the notion.

One hint: Make zip, tar, gz, bz2, tgz, and tbz files open with BetterZip by default. Why? First, you get beautiful icons for the archives, second, the process as described above will only work this smoothly when you let BetterZip handle your archives. (To help you with this here's another public service announcement: RCDefaultApp will help you setting default applications for all the file types on your Mac.) If you want to extract a file immediately when double-clicking it in Finder, just hold down the command-key while clicking. This will trigger BetterZip to behave like the default Mac OS X extractor. Neat, no?

Beside listening to all my Beatles records for a week (I found that I really like Ringo. He has - to my knowledge - only written two of the songs they recorded: "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden". No Number 1 smash hits (*), but they are both great. The piano on "Don't Pass Me By" sounds so weird. I also like his voice. Never noticed it before. I always thought of him of the "me too"-Beatle, but I think I was wrong. I am sorry Ringo! Really. Did you know Ringo (林檎) is Japanese for apple? What a strange coincidence. Did you know, the Beatles recorded more than 60 songs in their final year? Unbelievable.) - where was I? Ah, yes - I've, of course, worked on BetterZip. These things changed:

• JAR/WAR/EAR files can now be opened with BetterZip. After all these are ordinary ZIP files. RAR will follow in the next version. Most of the time RAR-files won't be Java archives in ZIP format, but RAR format archives from the RAR-Labs (e.g., created by WinRAR - boy, do they have ugly icons, right? Well it's only a Windows app). And the RAR-importer will be a little more work. So, enable the update checker to be the first to know when that version comes out.
• By default BetterZip now starts with an empty document window. You can change this in the Preferences. It was a little odd when first starting your freshly downloaded copy and nothing really happend. Or who really noticed the menu changed?
• Archives containing filenames with international characters were not named correctly after extraction.
• BetterZip was a little chatty and output quite a bit of useless information to the console.
• As one user complained (Hi Wolfgang!): The text in the about box was Helvetica when it should have been Lucida Grande. How could I ever release a product with such major deficiencies ;)? You see, every complaint is heard or read. (At least when it's this easy to fix.)

(*) Sorry again, Ringo: As I just found out, there is a page on Wikipedia dedicated to "Don't Pass Me By". Apparently this great song was a Number 1 smash hit in Poland. Cool. Perhaps each and every song by the Beatles was a #1 hit somewhere on this planet.

This is a really exciting moment. First, this post is my first, and I mean first ever, blog post. I know, what a cheesy line, you have read it only 9127 times -- in the past month alone. I did too. But then you have to start with the first post, no?

Second, I hereby announce the immediate availability of BetterZip, my take on archiving for our favourite platform the Mac, Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger to be specific. It currently handles ZIP and TAR files as well as GZip and BZip files.

Quick, click the download button on the right sidebar as there is only a limited number of copies available. Each hand crafted and autographed by me. By now you realize that I am probably a rather awful standup comedian in my day job and as the sun goes down I transform into a software developer. Anyway, the trial is free, so why not take it for a test drive.

Number three of the exciting news is this very thing here. My new web site. The imagery and design is by a friend of mine, Wolfgang from Artis Software. The CMS engine behind it all is Drupal. I am new to Drupal, so please forgive me, if some things don't look completely polished or behave illogical. I'll try to smooth it out within the next few days (or weeks). I have set up a forum in the Community section where you can post questions or other ... uhm ... stuff.

For now, download BetterZip and archive away!