Support Forum

Need help? First search this forum, since others might have had the same questions. If that doesn't solve your problem, just ask.

Hidden Options in BetterZip

Submitted by Robert on Wed, 2006-10-18 09:54
in

Here's a list of hidden options in BetterZip. You can fiddle with these to change behavior that I didn't think needs to be changed by 99.75% of users. However, I thought this shouldn't keep the remaining 0.25% (or 0.635 persons) from being happy with BetterZip.

Before setting any of these options quit BetterZip. Then open the terminal (Terminal.app), copy the command into the window, and press the Return key.

If you want to go back to the default factory settings (sure, I don't have a real factory, but it sounds cool), copy the delete command into the terminal window and press Return.

MIBOpenExtractedFolder
If you are annoyed that every time you do a 1-Click-Extract a Finder window with the extraction location is popped right into your face, turn it off with this option.

defaults write com.macitbetter.betterzip MIBOpenExtractedFolder NO

Go back to default with:

defaults delete com.macitbetter.betterzip MIBOpenExtractedFolder

MIB7ZipSwitchesForCreate
If you are a 7-zip super-power user, and find BetterZip too childish, because it doesn't let you set your favorite command line switches, use this option to set these switches and they will be used during the archive creation process:

defaults write com.macitbetter.betterzip MIB7ZipSwitchesForCreate -array "-ms=on" "-mhe=on"

This one is a little more complicated, true, but as 7-zip veteran you already figured out what is happening here: After the -array all the switches you like to add are listed in double quotes and separated by spaces.
In the example above, I added -ms=on, which will create solid archives which compress with a better ratio and -mhe=on which adds header encryption when turning encryption in the save panel on.

Go back to default with:

defaults delete com.macitbetter.betterzip MIB7ZipSwitchesForCreate

F.A.Q.

Submitted by Robert on Mon, 2006-04-03 12:06
in

Registration and Registration Keys

Q: I haven't received my key after I bought BetterZip.
A: If you are using a free e-mail service like GMail, your transaction may be subjected to extended fraud checking, which is required by credit card companies. If your key doesn't arrive within 8 hours, please contact me.

Q: My registration key doesn't work.
A: Please, make sure that you copy the complete code (four lines of numbers and letters, ending with an equal sign into the text field in the registration window.

Q: I have lost my registration key. Can you resend it, please?
A: Of course. Enter your e-mail address into this form (this is a free service).


Compression and Extraction

Q: I want to extract an archive, but BetterZip asks for a password. What's that about?
A: The archive's creator probably encrypted the archive and protected it with a password. Ask the creator for the correct password. In rare cases the archive is corrupted, but BetterZip cannot recognize this. If you downloaded the archive from the Internet, try downloading it again. The password has nothing to do with the BetterZip registration code.

Q: I compressed a PDF, JPG, MP3, MOV, or AVI file, but the compressed file is not much smaller than the original file. What's wrong?
A: Nothing is wrong. Multimedia files like music, images, and videos are usually already compressed as good as possible. Compressing them with an archiver cannot squeeze out many more bytes from the file.

Q: I dragged a Pages 09 document into an empty archive window. BetterZip did not add the document, but shows some funny files instead. What's wrong?
A: The Pages document is actually a zip file. When you drag it into an empty window, BetterZip thinks that you want to open it and shows you the contents of the zip file instead of adding it to an empty archive. Hold down the command key while dropping a Pages document or any other archive into an empty BetterZip window. This will force BetterZip to add the file.

Q: Someone sent me this Word file and I couldn't open it, but BetterZip was able to extract it. Now Word cannot open the files I extracted.
A: You have probably received a new Word docx file, and use Word 2004. You should not extract such files, but instead get the Microsoft file converter from here. Install the converter and run your files through it. For further support with this, please contact Microsoft.

Q: Why doesn't BetterZip display the compressed sizes of files in tgz and tbz archives as well as in certain RAR and 7z archives?
A: This is due to the way these formats work: First an uncompressed tar archive is created then this tar file is compressed with BZip2 or GZip, which are both limited to compressing one file. So, tar has no knowledge about the compression factors while GZip and BZip2 don't have knowledge about the contents of the tar file.

Some RAR and 7z archives are compressed with the solid option which leads to better compression ratios. With this option files are not compressed individually, but all together. The compression ratio can thus not be reported on a file level, but only on the archive level.


Other Questions

Q: I don't like that BetterZip brings a Finder window to the front every time I do a 1-Click-Extract.
A: You can turn that off in the preferences. Go to the tab Advanced and uncheck the option Reveal destination in Finder after extraction.

Q: Are you planning to add Finder contextual menus and AppleScript and Automator support and how long do we have to wait for that?
A: Yes and yes and not long. But there is no date scheduled yet. Just turn on update checking in the preferences window and you will be notified automatically.

Q: How can I uninstall BetterZip?
A: Delete BetterZip.app from your Applications folder. Open the folder Library/Preferences in your home folder and remove the file com.macitbetter.betterzip.plist. That's all.

Subsequent numbers omitted from archive names

Submitted by Tom on Sat, 2010-07-17 19:40
in

There appears to be a bug in BetterZip 1.8.3 in that subsequent numbers are omitted from the archive name within the save dialog. This happens only if the "Save As:" field in the save dialog is automatically populated based on a folder name or the name of the originally opened archive.

Here's an example:

If I drag a folder called "Example 1" to BetterZip and then hit save it will automatically fill in "Example" (notice the missing 1) as an archive name. The same is true when opening an archive such as "Example 1.zip" an then re-saving it in a different format via "Save As..."

This behavior does not surface in the following situations:

- Number is followed by letters ("Example 1 example" or "Example 1example")
- No preceding space ("Example1")
- Number in between brackets or other special characters ("Example [1]")

The number of digits does not seem to make a difference: "Example 12345" will also be omitted.

I also noticed that periods (".") are always omitted along with everything following them. So "Example.test" turns into "Example".

I should also add that manually changing the archive name in the save dialog will of course correct these issues on a case by case basis.

Some text files not showing in preview drawer

Submitted by wendell_temp_12... on Fri, 2010-05-21 22:37
in


In .jar files, there are often text files called:
LICENSE
MANIFEST.MF
LICENSE
ASL2.0
etc.

These files don't show up in the preview drawer although if you right-click and select "View", they open up fine.

Problem extracting application from ZIP

Submitted by Dixie Flatline on Thu, 2010-05-06 03:19
in

Just found a subtle problem, where it seems like Archive Utility does the right thing and BetterZip doesn't. I've got an OSX application in a zip file (the OSX version of the game Gish, bought through the Humble Indie bundle deal here: http://www.wolfire.com/humble ). The zipfile contains only the application Gish.app. If I extract Gish.app by dragging it from the BetterZip window into my Applications folder and try to run it, it does nothing, and the system log shows this message:
com.apple.launchd[1015] ([0x0-0x6a26a2].Gish[15758]): posix_spawnp("/Applications/Games/Gish.app/Contents/MacOS/Gish", ...): Permission denied

If I extract the same file using Archive Utility, the app runs fine. It appears to be an issue with this particular zip file -- if I look at the Attribute column in BZ, it's blank for Gish.app. If I look at one of the other zipped games from the same deal, BZ shows a Unix attribute string of drwxr-xr- for the zipped .app, and those apps work just fine if extracted with BetterZip.

I think what's happening is that Archive Utility recognizes that the file attributes are missing in the zip when it extracts Gish.app, and sets them appropriately for an application. BZ just drops the file bundle as is, without setting any attributes because there aren't any in the zipfile. It might be nice if BZ recognized and fixed that sort of problem. I don't imagine it happens that often, but it's the sort of thing that causes headaches when it does.

On another note, any chance of adding a way to show details of how a file is encrypted in a zipfile, and other technical details? I can create an AES-encrypted zipfile just fine, and extract files from it with the password, but I can't find any way to actually show that the file is AES encrypted rather than PKZip2 password-encrypted. I imagine the details would vary for each file format, but it would be nice to either have another column in the display for this sort of technical info, or a popup window.

Besides those minor details, it's a wonderful app and I'm glad I found it. I originally just wanted something to let my wife easily create encrypted zipfiles for mailing documents to people, but it is indeed Better for just about everything. Thanks!

Syndicate content