Zip app

[tuartboy]

Hey, I'm fairly new to this OS X thing and I have a question about archiving.

Does the context menu archive command compress the file or just archive it? I look at the archived file and it appears to be the same size as before i zipped it. Is this supposed to happen and do I need to get 3rd party zip? I have dropbox right now, but I want something free if I can.

Thanks guys.

 

[cooknwitha]

It all depends on what kind of files you're trying to compress. Some won't go any smaller.

Check out StuffIt and I'm pretty sure that zips as well. Its usually included with the OS anyway.

 

[tuartboy]

stuffit is not included with tiger

and only expander is free. to stuff, you have to buy it

 

[~Shard~]

No need to go third party - as cooknwitha said, just use StuffIt. A version should be installed already in OS X and if you need something more powerful, you can buy the Pro version for next to nothing, as I recall. Definitely worth it if you plan on doing a lot of compressing and such.

 

[~Shard~]

stuffit is not included with tiger

and only expander is free. to stuff, you have to buy it

Really? I had no idea - I'm still on Panther, and StuffIt came with my machine. Why on Earth would Apple remove a useful utility like that from the OS? Well, I guess this is another item to add to my ever-growing list of reasons not to move to Tiger...

 

[tuartboy]

Really? I had no idea - I'm still on Panther, and StuffIt came with my machine. Why on Earth would Apple remove a useful utility like that from the OS? Well, I guess this is another item to add to my ever-growing list of reasons not to move to Tiger...

Yeah, I think it's because apple is now including archiving into their os. You can even get folder actions that zip any files you drop into the folder and stuff like that.

I was just wondering why none of my files were getting smaller. I know compressing jpegs does nothing really, but i zipped some disk images i had that were 700 meg or so and nothing happened. That seemed odd.

 

[DavidLeblond]

If you're comfortable with the Terminal, just go in there and type compress and then the file name.

If I were at my Mac I'd whip you up a Automator thing to do it for ya. Maybe tonight...

 

[tuartboy]

If you're comfortable with the Terminal, just go in there and type compress and then the file name.

If I were at my Mac I'd whip you up a Automator thing to do it for ya. Maybe tonight...

oh, i'm fine with that. I tarball stuff on my linux boxen all the time. I was just wondering about the built in contextual menu archive command.

 

[~Shard~]

Yeah, I think it's because apple is now including archiving into their os. You can even get folder actions that zip any files you drop into the folder and stuff like that.

I was just wondering why none of my files were getting smaller. I know compressing jpegs does nothing really, but i zipped some disk images i had that were 700 meg or so and nothing happened. That seemed odd.

Ah, gotcha, thanks for the clarification, I probably spoke too soon. Yah, certain file types of course won't compress any further, but as you say, you would think a 700 MB disk image would... interesting...

 

[MisterMe]

Really? I had no idea - I'm still on Panther, and StuffIt came with my machine. Why on Earth would Apple remove a useful utility like that from the OS? Well, I guess this is another item to add to my ever-growing list of reasons not to move to Tiger...

The reason that Stuffit Expander was not included with Tiger was that the Tiger-compatible version was not ready when Tiger went to manufacturing. When Expander was ready, Apple posted a link on its website to download the utility.

 

[~Shard~]

The reason that Stuffit Expander was not included with Tiger was that the Tiger-compatible version was not ready when Tiger went to manufacturing. When Expander was ready, Apple posted a link on its website to download the utility.

Once again, thanks for the info! You learn somethnig new every day.

 

[tuartboy]

The reason that Stuffit Expander was not included with Tiger was that the Tiger-compatible version was not ready when Tiger went to manufacturing. When Expander was ready, Apple posted a link on its website to download the utility.

huh, okay. makes sense.

well does tiger have built in archive features? What am I using when I use the context menu achive? I do have stuffit installed.

 

[wordmunger]

Aren't .dmg files already compressed? Isn't that why they take a while to open?

 

[tuartboy]

Aren't .dmg files already compressed? Isn't that why they take a while to open?

come to think of it, that makes total sense.

ok, i need to find something uncompressed to test this thing on...

 

[GodBless]

The reason that Stuffit Expander was not included with Tiger was that the Tiger-compatible version was not ready when Tiger went to manufacturing. When Expander was ready, Apple posted a link on its website to download the utility.

I thought the reason for doing it was so they could become more independent from 3rd party software. Tiger doesn't have Explorer or StuffIt like Panther did. Tiger has Safari and a pretty good archiving and unarchiving system instead.

 

[GodBless]

come to think of it, that makes total sense.

ok, i need to find something uncompressed to test this thing on...

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple uses the same type of compression for zipping files (that is if it actually does compress .zip files) as it does for compressing Disk Images.

 

[tuartboy]

ok, i used the built-in system on a 700mb folder with html/flash files inside of it and the zip was 511mb. Looks like I was just zipping the wrong stuff. bleh.

Ok, problem solved here then.

GodBless, I originally thought that was what I read somewhere, but both make sense. Either way it looks like tiger has a real archive function built into the OS, so I guess I am fine.

You still need stuffit for .sit files though.

 

[MisterMe]

I thought the reason for doing it was so they could become more independent from 3rd party software. Tiger doesn't have Explorer or StuffIt like Panther did. Tiger has Safari and a pretty good archiving and unarchiving system instead.

Apple is in no way dependent on Stuffit Expander. All of Apple's downloadable MacOS X software is archived as .dmg or .zip files. However, many third-party Mac developers are dependent on Expander. So too are its users. Stuffit has been around for two decades, which means that two decades worth of Mac files have been Stuffed. By including Expander with every copy of MacOS X (before Tiger), Apple eliminated the need for self-extracting archive (.sea) files and the security problems that they cause.

 

[Makosuke]

Apple's built-in zip compression unquestionably compresses files--I've just been zipping a bunch of stuff--but I wonder if it's set to optimize for speed over filesize; I ask because I've been seeing compression in the vicinity of 2 to 1 using the Finder, but when I compressed a folder full of a similar assortment of files using WinZip and the medium-high (whatever) setting, I got around 4 to 1. Could've just been luck, but has anybody done tests on how agressive the Finder is?

 

[tuartboy]

Apple's built-in zip compression unquestionably compresses files--I've just been zipping a bunch of stuff--but I wonder if it's set to optimize for speed over filesize; I ask because I've been seeing compression in the vicinity of 2 to 1 using the Finder, but when I compressed a folder full of a similar assortment of files using WinZip and the medium-high (whatever) setting, I got around 4 to 1. Could've just been luck, but has anybody done tests on how agressive the Finder is?

I was wondering the same thing actually.

 

[HiRez]

I find that OS X's built-in .zip compresses almost as well as StuffIt, and it's much faster (decompressing is much, much faster). Considering .zip and .dmg, and .tar/.gz, StuffIt needs to die.