Browsing RAR/ZIP archives with Irfanview

[Nian]

Been a user of Irfanview for over a decade now I came across one problem that has plagued me since day dot and honestly I am jack of it!

The problem is not been able to view/slideshow imaged in archives. Honestly it finally wore away at my nerves and thought "For goodness sakes, for sure there is a plugin or an option to get this working." so I read these forums only to find that there are people who would oppose this feature! I mean WTF thats seriously backwards. I mean do the people who don't want this feature also hate how mankind invented the wheel? or Fire?


Either way, its something that many people would have expected such a widely used image viewer to of had for years now and the fact that it doesn't seems to me to be crazy.

Its not that hard to decompress files on the fly by the way, I have seen it way back in the Commodore Amiga days, check out things like the amiga library packs (sorta like codecs) XAD and XFD.

Even powerpacker decompressed on the fly. Hell you could compress exe's with it and they still ran so...

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Either way, its something that many people would have expected such a widely used image viewer to of had for years now and the fact that it doesn't seems to me to be crazy.

Does FastStone Viewer have this? What about ACDSee? Why is it crazy to expect an image viewer to decompress archives? You can view files inside archives with IrfanView — you cannot browse, or run a slideshow, but you can view them.

If IrfanView called whatever archive program was installed, decompressed the archive to a temporary folder, then browsed that folder, I guess it could work. Then it needs to delete the folder as soon as you move on from that archive to another image or archive. That sounds to me like it would involve a lot of extra disk activity and/or a huge amount of extra memory usage.

I think the main advantage of IV, and the reason why we prefer it to other viewers is its small size and quick loading. Some things could improve its performance, such as image caching, but I think this would make it slower.

[ChuckE]

I agree that we should not clutter IrfanView -(unless it is not a large change)- with a lot of "tricks and features" when it's very purpose is to be a fast, small, and simple graphic viewer. I love IrfanView, and while it might be nice to have it be a "jack of all trades" I would not want to have it grow fat and slow.

Now please understand, I am an Amiga devotee:

I have seen it way back in the Commodore Amiga

I had an Amiga way back in 1985, and there was plenty that GREAT platform could do, that other machines would only scoff at (only because they could not do the same thing, or as efficiently). But I don't want IrfanView to grow fat and slow only to compensate for the limitations, or lack of vision, in this PC world.

Eventually, IrfanView might have expanded abilities, either through plug-ins, or through more efficient coding, but don't saddle it right now. There are more important things to correct, or make better, right now, when there are not so convenient - but workable - alternatives.

[Sam_Zen]

do the people who don't want this feature also hate how mankind invented the wheel? or Fire?

I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculous association.
This is not about being conservative or such. Just plain technical considerations are playing a role here.
And a conclusion regarding priorities.

And still being technical : there is a clear difference between just showing a file from within an archive,
or making it part of some editing or programming procedure.
One can see an .exe file inside an archive, but it's not possible to directly activate it from there.
The packer would then ask : 'Do you want to extract this file ?'

[j7n]

One or two supported archive formats would not bloat IrfanView. It should not attempt to become a file decompressor, but support only Zip, and perhaps subset of RAR format (Store method only).

[ChuckE]

. . .would not bloat IrfanView. . .

How do you know that? Have you ever coded decompressing methods? Just because you figure including one or two very common compression formats (Zip and RAR) does not mean those are the easiest, nor the most compact, to code.

I don't code, so I can't answer these questions. But I would not assume as much.

[DarkCless]

I'm not a coder , neither but if playing videos or music files don't bloat it ; then archive browsing definitely wouldn't ; either

It is understandable that it may take time and hard work to implement ; but what I don't really get is why people make excuses and stand against it instead accepting it's a missing feature that would be very useful

[ChuckE]

I don't think anybody is really all that dead-set against the adding of features, but most of us would like certain current things fixed and made better before considering adding new features. The amount of new releases coming from Irfan are now getting fewer and further between. There used to be about a half-dozen new releases, or more, in a year; but now it seems there may be a year between releases. I think we may be getting toward the end of the concerted effort of updates and feature adds from Irfan, the developer.
(One of the great abilities, is to allow others to make a "plug-in" to add features. Such as the really nice "IrfanPaint" plug-in from MItaly. That is probably the direction most new features will be coming from, as plug-ins.)

As for the features added to play videos and music, that was done years ago in the early days of IrfanView. Initially IrfanView was made to be a simple picture viewer, but soon the playing of animated graphics (GIFs) and some video was added. The videos might have had audio, so the sound had to be there too. Once the sound feature was there it was an easy transition to include the playing of sound files.

You may notice that while the playing of video and sound is there, there is no ability to save any of it. (And I am not even suggesting it should be there.) So, while you can view and save many image types as even other types, you can not do so with video or sound.

This is IrfanViewer, not IrfanKitchensink.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Whether you're for it or against it, this is a perfectly reasonable Feature Request. I'm closing this thread as there is no point in debating it any further. Any moderators who think it worth adding to the Project list can do so.

[Sam_Zen]

It's an interesting debate, but imo not worth moving it to the Project list.

[zzenn]

Ability to browse Rar and Zip archives

I would like to see the ability to browse rar and zip archives and on-the-fly decompress to memory images as they are viewed.

Other applications do this by (almost) treating the zip/rar file as a filesystem and instead of decompressing to temp space, they read the files directly from the archive to memory. Once you advance to the next image, the old image is discarded from memory, unless you hold a cache of 2 or 3 images for speed.

I *have* read the other feature request in this forum, but that one seemed to devolve into a mudslinging contest and the thread got locked. Please, if you don't like my suggestion, just be quiet. Please don't lock this thread either - let people who are interested in this feature add their voice here.

This functionality could probably be added through a plug-in. Those who do not desire this functionality can then simply remove this plug or disable it.

Certain other imageviewers include this functionality. Some are bloated, some are not. ACDsee (rar/zip) and CompuPic (zip) which are commercial, and CDisplayEx (rar/zip) and MangaMeeya (rar/zip) which are freeware. MangaMeeya in fact is so small and fast that any notion that this feature would add bloat is void. The only way it could add bloat is by having sloppy programming. And again, if this is plug-in functionality, people can disable it at will.

I'm here requesting this feature for irfanview because I would like to use irfanview with this feature. Please don't tell me to go use another application. I'm already aware they are there, and yet I'm here requesting - because irfanview is my favorite viewer in all other respects.

Viewing images inside archives is a useful feature for a lot of people - which can be seen quite obviously from the fact that certain other viewers support this feature.

This request is a request of convenience. Instead of having to use 2 or 3 image viewers, suddenly it would be possible just one.

I apologize if my post is preemptive, but the tone in the last feature request thread of this sort has made me defensive from the start, which really shouldn't be necessary. A "Feature Requests" forum is there to receive constructive feedback. It's not there for the feature suggestions to be hammered into the ground or discredited by people who do not need the features requested. Obviously someone needs it, and that's why it has been requested.

[jazzman]

Thanks, zzenn, for the investigation in the matter.

I too think this would be a valuable addition.

[j7n]

I agree with Zzen. But everything has already been said on this matter. Apparently one needs to convince a moderator before any action will taken and the request heard.

[SkyLine]

@Zzen:

You centered the question, I like Irfanview too, and I would like this functionality for the same reason.

But, important: browser for .rar, .cbr. cbz files, AND the possibility to view 2 pictures at a time facing, like two pages of a book on the screen.

CDisplay is already performing this, but it's not much customisable. I don't like of it the fact that it puts the images one near the other without separation, I think it where better to leave a number of pixels in between; and it lacks the possibility to change from pages to pages also through the arrow keys <-, ->, why not?

About MangaMeeya, I didn't know, thanks for the reference.

SkyLine

[JZA]

Hi I'm a long time user of irfanview (was using it well before my join date) and I too would also like this feature but was scared to ask after viewing the last thread. lol.

I think this would be a great addition to irfanview and would like to see it.

Thanks.