Archive Manager enables you to view several aspects of an archive.
To view the properties of an archive, choose Archive ▸ Properties to display the Properties dialog. The Properties dialog displays the following information about the archive:
The name of the archive.
The position of the archive in the file system.
The date and time at which the archive was last modified.
The size of the archive contents when compressed.
The size of the archive contents when uncompressed. This information is also available in the statusbar.
The compression ratio is a value used to describe the reduction in size of the data. For example a compression ratio of 5 means that the compressed archive is 1/5th the size of the original data.
The number of files in the archive.
Archive Manager displays the archive contents in the main window as a file list with the following columns:
The name of a file or folder in the archive.
The size of the file when the file is extracted from the archive. For a folder, the Size field is blank. For information on how to display the size of the compressed file, see Section 7.3 ― To Display Additional Details.
The type of the file. For a folder, the value in the Type field is Folder.
The date on which the file was last modified. For a folder, the Date modified field is blank.
The path to the file within the archive. For a folder, the Location field is blank.
If another program has modified the archive since Archive Manager opened the archive, choose View ▸ Reload to reload the archive contents from disk.
For information on how to customize the way that Archive Manager displays the archive contents, see Section 7 ― Customizing the Archive Display.
For more advanced tasks, use an application installed on your system. For more information, see Section 6.3 ― To View a File in an Archive.
To view a file in an archive, perform the following steps:
Archive Manager uses information from the File Types and Programs section of Advanced Desktop Preferences to automatically determine the appropriate application for the file type, and then launches that application. If Archive Manager cannot determine the appropriate application, Archive Manager displays the Open Files dialog to let you choose an application, as described below.
You can use an application specified by you, rather than the default application, to view a file. To use an external application to open a file, choose Edit ▸ Open Files. Archive Manager displays the Open Files dialog, which lists all of the applications that can open files of the specified type. To select one of the applications, click on the application name and then click Open. Alternatively, enter the application name in the Application text box and then click Open to launch the application of your choice.
You cannot use Archive Manager to change a file. If you use an application to open a file within a Archive Manager archive and make any changes to the opened file, Archive Manager does not save the changes in the archive, even if you click Save in the application. Archive Manager creates a temporary copy of the file, and then passes the temporary copy to the file-editing application. When you close the file-editing application, Archive Manager deletes the temporary copy of the file and all changes are lost.
To edit a file in a Archive Manager archive and save your changes in the archive: