# The &ark; Handbook

Matt
Johnston

    mattj@flashmail.com

Lauri
Watts

    vampyr@atconnex.net

Reviewer
2000
Matt Johnston
&FDLNotice;
14/12/2000
1.90.00

This Handbook describes &ark; Version 1.9

&ark; is an archive manager for KDE.

KDE
gzip
gunzip
tar
archive
zip
compression
lha
kdeutils
ark

## Introduction

&ark; is a program for managing various archive formats within the KDE environment. Archives can be viewed, extracted, created and modified from within &ark;. The program can handle various formats such as tar, gzip, bzip2, zip and lha (if appropriate command-line programs are installed). &ark; works closely with Konqueror in the KDE environment to handle archives.

### &ark; Documentation Revision History

- 0.05.00 - Original &ark; documentation - Robert Palmbos

- 0.05.00 - Documentation for KDE2 - Matt Johnston

## Using ark

### Opening Archives

To open an archive in &ark;, choose Open from the File menu. You can also open archive files by dragging and dropping from Konqueror. Archive files should be associated with &ark;, so you can also right-click a file in Konqueror and select Archiver to open it.

### Working with Files

Once an archive has been opened, you can perform various operations on the files inside the archive. By right-clicking on a file within the archive, or selecting a file and using the Action menu, you can choose what you want to do:

- View will open the file in the default viewer program.

- Open With... allows you to open the file in a program you choose.

- Edit With... will open the file a program you choose. The difference between this and Open With... is that any changes you make will be saved to the file in the archive.

- Delete will remove the currently selected file(s) from the archive.

### Extracting Archives

Once an archive has been opened in &ark;, it can be extracted. To extract files from an archive, you can either select Extract... from the Action or by right-clicking on any file. The Extract dialog allows you to select where you will extract files to. You can also select which files to extract:

- "Current" extracts the most recently selected file. If multiple files are selected, only the most recently selected one will be extracted.

- "All" extracts the entire contents of the archive.

- "Selected Files" extracts all the files which have been selected.

- "Pattern" allows you to specify which files will be extracted, corresponding to certain patterns, ie `*.txt` or `*.jpg`. Note that you can only use one pattern at a time.

You can specify the directory to extract files to in the "Extract to:" textbox. If you want to change the default directory, in the main program window, choose Directories... on the Settings menu. Under the "Advanced" tab, you can choose some specific options depending on the archive format.

### Creating Archives and Adding Files

To create a new archive in &ark;, choose New from the File menu.

You can then type the name of the archive, with the appropriate extension (`tar.gz`, `zip`, `bz2` etc). To add files to the archive, choose Add File... from the Action menu. If you want to add an entire directory to an archive, choose Add Dir... from the Action menu.

An alternative way to add files to the archive is to drag a file from Konqueror or the desktop into the main &ark; window, and it will be added to the current archive.

## Command Reference

### The File Menu

Ctrln File New

  Creates a new archive

Ctrlo File Open

  Opens an archive

File Open Recent

  Shows a list of recent archives to choose from

File Save As

  Allows you to save the current archive under a new file name

File New Window

  Opens a new &ark; window

File Reload

  Loads the current archive again from disk. This will refresh &ark;'s view if another program has made changes to the archive.

File Close Archive

  Closes the current archive

File Quit

  Closes &ark;

### The Edit Menu

Edit Select...

  Lets you select files according to their filename. For example, you could use `*.txt` to select all txt files. Note that you can't use more than one filter at a time.

Edit Select All

  Selects all the files in the archive

Edit Deselect All

  Unselects all the files in the archive

Edit Invert Selection

  Reverses which files are selected. Selected files become unselected, and unselected files are selected.

Edit View shell output

  Displays the Shell Output box, which shows you the output of the most recent command(s) run by &ark;. This is sometimes useful if you are having problems and want to troubleshoot.

### The Action Menu

Action Add File...

  Shows the Add Files dialog box, where you can select files. Hold down Ctrl and click to select multiple files. To go up a directory, right click the directory box, and you can choose "Up" (this will probably be improved soon). The "Advanced" tab has options which are specific to the type or archive you are working with.

Action Add Dir...

  Shows the "Add Directory" dialog box, where you can choose a directory to add. Just choose a directory and choose Open.

Action Delete

  Removes the currently selected files from the archive.

Action Extract

  Shows the Extract dialog box, which allows you to select where you will extract files to. You can also select which files to extract:

  - "Current" extracts the most recently selected file. If multiple files are selected, only the most recently selected one will be extracted.

  - "All" extracts the entire contents of the archive.

  - "Selected Files" extracts all the files which have been selected.

  - "Pattern" allows you to specify which files will be extracted, corresponding to certain patterns, i.e. `*.txt` or `*.jpg` Note that you can only use one pattern at a time.

  You can specify the directory to extract files to in the "Extract to:" textbox. If you want to change the default directory, in the main program window, choose Directories... on the Settings menu. Under the "Advanced" tab, you can choose some specific options depending on the archive format.

Action View

  Opens the currently selected file in the associated viewer program.

Action Open with...

  Opens the currently selected file in a program you choose. The "Open With..." dialog box lets you choose which program to use.

Action Edit with..

  Opens the currently selected file in a program you choose. Any changes you make in the editor program will be reflected in the archive, as it will be updated.

### The Settings Menu

Settings Show Toolbar

  Toggles whether the toolbar is displayed.

Settings Show Statusbar

  Toggles whether the statusbar is displayed.

Settings Save Settings

  Saves the current configuration options to disk. This means that they will be "remembered" next time you use &ark;.

Settings Configure Key Bindings...

  Displays the "Key Bindings" dialog box. This lets you choose shortcut keys for various menu items. To change a shortcut, select an action from the list, and then choose which keystroke to use. Clicking on the bottom right hand "key" button lets you choose which specific key to use. Just press the new key.

Settings Directories...

  This shows the Directories dialog box, so you can choose the default directories. The "last startup directory" is the last directory you used for that particular option.

## Credits and License

&ark; is Copyright 1997-2000, Various Ark Developers

Authors:

- Robert Palmbos palm9744@kettering.edu

- Francois-Xavier Duranceau duranceau@kde.org

- Corel Corporation (author: Emily Ezust) emilye@corel.com

Documentation copyright 2000 Matt Johnston mattj@flashmail.com

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &ark;

&ark; is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org. &ark; can be found in the kdeutils package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main ftp site of the KDE project.

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &ark;, you need KDE 2.0. GNU Tar v1.12 and a recent gzip are also needed to use &ark;. To handle other file formats, you need the appropriate command line programs, such as zip, unzip, ar and lha.

### Compilation and installation

In order to compile and install &ark; on your system, type the following in the base directory of the kdeutils distribution:

    % ./configure
    % make
    % make install

Since &ark; uses autoconf and automake you should have not trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.