Managing archived files

You can work with archived files and folders in the Remote System Explorer.

Use the Remote Systems view perform the following actions with archived files:

Pick from the following:

Task Description
Browsing: To browse and open files in an archive, click the plus sign beside the archive to display the contents. Continue to expand folders within the archive or double-click any file to open it in the default editor. Save files as you normally would and they are saved in the archive. In the properties view, note the addition of "#archive#" to the path of the file, to indicate how the file exists inside the archive.
Copying and pasting: To copy and paste files, or move them from one location to another, right-click a file or folder inside an archive and select Copy or Move. (When you select Move instead of Copy, you delete the file in the original location, to move it to a new one.) Using the window that opens, you can paste the item to any archived, or unarchived location by expanding the tree-view to any specific location, and clicking OK. Note that you can perform this action across different connections as well.
Dragging and dropping: You can drag and drop files between archives, from an archive to an unarchived location, or from an unarchived location into an archive. Expand both the original and destination locations in the Remote Systems view, click the item you want to move, and drag it with your cursor to the new location. Note that you can perform this action across different connections as well.
Creating: To create files and folders inside an archive, or to create a new archive, right-click any folder in the archive, or the root level archive itself, and select:
  • New > File to create a normal file within the archive. You can also select the file type to be an archive, whereby you can create an archive inside of an archive.
  • New > Folder to create a normal folder within the archive. Then right-click your virtual folder to create more folders or files.
Deleting: To delete a file or folder from inside an archive, simply right-click the item and select Delete, or hit the Delete key.
Extracting: You have two options when extracting files. You can either extract to a new folder within your current directory (by selecting Extract to xyz where xyz is your current directory) or browse to a specific extraction directory (by selecting Extract To . . .). You can also select multiple archives and perform the same actions.
  • To extract the contents of an archive to a new folder within your current directory, right-click your archive and select Extract to xyz where xyz is the name of your current directory. If your archive was named "MyArchive.zip" then the extraction will create a new folder within your current directory called "MyArchive" and all of the files will be placed in the new folder in their proper structure. Click OK. If you want, use the right-click menu to rename the new folder.
  • To extract the contents of an archive to a location other than the current directory, right-click your archive and select Extract To.
    1. A dialog box displays, presenting a tree view of all drives, files, and folders defined in the Remote Systems view. Expand any location in the tree view to define the directory location where you want to extract the contents of your archive.
    2. (Optional) You can select a directory, and press the Details button to see a list of properties for that location.
    3. (Optional) You can expand New Connection to define a new connection to a location where you want to extract the files.
    4. (Optional) When you extract the contents of an archive to a destination directory, the files and directories in the archive are copied directly to that destination. You are prompted to overwrite or rename duplicate files in the target directory.
    5. Click OK.
Adding files to an archive: To add files and folder to an archive, select one or more files/folders, right-click, and select Add to Archive.
  1. A dialog box displays, presenting a tree view of all drives, files, and folders defined in the Remote Systems view.
  2. To create a new archive for the selected files and folders
    1. Expand any location in the tree view to define the location for the new archive.
    2. Specify a name for the archive in the File name field.
    3. Specify an Archive type from the drop-down list.
    To add files and folders to an existing archive:
    1. Select the existing archive's parent folder in the tree view.
    2. Specify a name for the archive in the File name field.
    3. Specify an Archive type from the drop-down list.
  3. Click OK.
The selected files/folders are copied to the root directory in the new archive location
Searching for content inside an archive: To search for files within an archive, right-click the archive, select Search, and complete the dialog box to specify what kinds of files and folder you want to find. Note that if you begin your search on a normal, unarchived directory that contains an archive, the default behaviour is not to search the archive. You need to explicitly start from the archive itself to search for contents within that archive.
Converting archives: To convert archives from one type (.zip, .jar, or .tar) to another, select one or more archives, right-click, and select Convert. A Convert Archive dialog box opens for each archive you selected. In the dialog box, select a new archive type from the Archive Type drop-down list to convert the selected archive. You can also, optionally, specify a new location and new name for your archive, by selecting a location in the tree view and entering a new name in the File name field. Click OK.