Using gnochive

gnochive can be used to process (create/extract/delete/update/test) all common types of archives (e.g. tar.gz(tgz),tar.bz2(tbz),zip,rar), trough an easy to use GUI (graphical user interface) which normaly should work on any X-Window enviroment. This section describes basic usage of gnochive.

Also gnochive can create "un-common" tar archives filtered trough almost any arbitrary compression program. For instance filtering a tar archive trough rar packer.

Basic usage

Starting gnochive opens the Main window, shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. gnochive Main Window

Create an archive

To create an an archive, first select files you want to pack, then select File->Add to archive, or just by click on Add to archive button on the toolbar, which will bring up the Create archive dialog box.

Figure 2. Create archive dialog

Select the type of the archive in the Archive type frame, select compresion level in the Compresion combo-box, enter the name of the archive in the archive Archive field, and and press Create. It is not necesarely to put the extension in the Archive field gnochive will auto-add the extension once you have selected the type of the archive.

gnochive can Estimate size of the archive you are about to create, shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Estimate dialog

You can estimate the size of the archive trough different compression programs, by selecting the compresion program in the Compression estimate for combo-box.

NoteEstimate
 

gnochive estimates the compresion of the selected files. That doesn't mean that a compression program is better than another one, it just let you see a comparation to different compresion program for the files you selected.

Open/Extract archives

To open an archive, you can select it from the file browser shown on in Figure 1 in the section called Basic usage, and press Open an archive button.

Note

If you don't select anything on the file browser gnochive will pop a file open dialog and asq you for an archive name.

Once you have opened the archive, you can procced using extract/test/delete shown in Figure 4 in the section called Toolbar

TipExtraction archives
 

After you have selected the desired archive you can extract it just by clicking the right mouse button. You can of course pack any files you just selected using the same method, every time a contextual popup will show depends of what you have selected (if a file is an archive you'll be prompted to extract it, if it's just another file maybe you wanna pack it.

Toolbar

The toolbar (shown in the section called Toolbar) provides access to several commonly used functions.

Figure 4. gnochive Toolbar

Add to archive

Brings up the Create archive dialog.

Open archive

Open an (selected) archive.

Extract

Extract files from the current opened archive or extracts the file/archive you selected.

Test archive

Test the current opened archive or can fire a file selection dialog to select an archive you want to test.

View file

View a selected file from the archive or just view a file from the current directory.

Archive Options

Brings up the gnochive configuration dialog.

Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:

File

This menu contains:

  • Add to archive — This brings up the archive creation dialog.

  • Open (F3) — This opens an archive.

  • Close (Ctrl-W) — Closes current open archive.

  • Exit (Ctrl-Q) — This quits the application.

Edit

This menu contains:

  • Select All (Ctrl-A) — Selects all displayed files.

  • Cut (Ctrl-X) — This removes any text or data which is selected and places it in the buffer.

  • Copy (Ctrl-C) — This copies any text or data which is selected into the buffer.

  • Paste (Ctrl-V) — This pastes any text or data which is copied into the buffer.

  • Clear — Clear current selected files.

Tools

This menu contains:

  • Repair archive — This opens the Preferences Dialog, which allows you to configure many settings.

  • Test archive — This command does something.

Settings

This menu contains:

  • Preferences — This opens the Preferences Dialog, which allows you to configure gnochive settings.

Help

This menu contains:

  • Manual — This opens the GNOME Help Browser and displays this manual.

  • About — This opens the About dialog which shows basic information about gnochive, such as the author's name, the application version number, and the URL for the application's Web page if one exists.