Modifying an Archive

File Roller allows you to modify an archive file. There are two types of operations: those that affect the archive as a whole (such as renaming the archive) and those that affect individual files or directories inside the archive.

Please note that all operations on the archive are saved to disk immediately. For example, if you are deleting a file from the archive, File Roller will delete it as soon as you click OK button. This is different from most applications which save the changes to disk only when you quit the application or select Save in the menu.

Operations on Archive as a Whole

The File menu of File Roller contains the following commands for modifying the archive file:

Adding Files to an Archive

The easiest way to add files to currently open archive is to drag files to File Roller window from another GNOME application (such as file manager). Alternatively, you can choose Actions->Add files, click on the Add button in the toolbar, or right-click on a file in File Roller window and select Add files. This opens Add files dialog, shown in Figure 2. In this dialog, select the files you want to add and click OK.

TIP: To select more than one file, hold down Ctrl key when selecting files. To select a continous block of files from the list, click on the first file, then hold down Shift key and click on the last file of the block. All files between them will be selected.

To add a whole directory to the archive, make sure that Selection field is blank (you may have to erase * from it) and click (not double-click!) on the directory name.

Add files dialog can also be used to automatically select and add all files satisfying certain criteria. This is discussed in the section called Adding Files - Advanced Options.

Please note that when adding files to the archive, File Roller does not remove the original file; it remains unchanged. Also, the added file in the archive will have the same permissions and modification date as the original file.

Deleting Files From an Archive

To delete files from currently open archive, select the files you want to delete (see this tip on selecting multiple files) and choose Actions->Delete files..., or right-click on the selected files and choose Delete files.... This opens Delete dialog, which gives you a choice of deleting all files, selected files, or files matching a pattern. To learn more about filename patterns, see next section.

Adding Files - Advanced Options

As mentioned before, the simplest way to add files to an archive using Add Files dialog is just select the files you want to add (see this tip on selecting multiple files) and click OK. However, this dialog also allows you to automatically select and add files satisfying certain criteria. This section describes these features.

Figure 2. Add Files Dialog

To automatically select all files matching a certain pattern, enter the pattern in Selection field. The pattern may use standard wildcard symbols * (matches any string) and ? (matches any single symbol). For example, pattern * matches all files, while *.tar* matches all files with extension tar, possibly followed by any sequence of symbols, for example filename.tar.gz. Please note that by default filenames in Unix are case-sensitive; you can override this by selecting Ignore case option, as described below.

You can also enter several patterns separated by semicolon (;). In this case, File Roller will select all files which match at least one of the patterns. For example, you can enter *.jpg; *.jpeg to select all files with extensions jpg and jpeg.

You can modify the selection using the following options in this dialog:

Add only if newer

This option controls what happens if the archive already contains a file with the same name as the one you are adding. If this option is unselected, the file will be added, overwriting previous archive contents. If this option is selected, the file will be added only if it is newer than the file already in the archive (File Roller uses modification time to determine which file is newer).

TIP: This option is very convenient for keeping backups up-to-date. For example, assume that you have an archive backup.tar.gz which contain, in archived form, the contents of your home directory as it was a week ago. You want to update it so that it contains the contents of your home directory as it is now. To do so, open the archive in File Roller, click on Add button, select your home directory, select option Add only if newer and click OK. This will automatically add to the archive all files that have been created during the last week and update all files that have been modified during the last week. (However, it will not remove from the archive the files you have deleted during the last week.). This is much faster than doing full backup of your home directory.

Include subdirectories

If this option is selected, File Roller will select all files matching the pattern not only in the current directory but also in its subdirectories. Please note that it is the filename that must match the pattern, not the subdirectory name.

Exclude directories that are symbolic links

If this option is selected, File Roller will not include files from directories that are symbolic links (i.e., "pointers" or "shortcuts" to other directories).

Exclude other file systems

If this option is selected, File Roller will not include files from filesystems other than the current one. If you are not familiar with Unix notion of filesystem, this is roughly equivalent to including only the files that are physically on the same disk and partition as the current directory. In particular, this option will exclude files on removable media (CD's, floppies, Zip disks) and files on other computers in the network (such as files from an NFS filesystem), except for the one that contains the current directory.

Exclude backup files

If this option is selected, File Roller will not include files with the name ending with tilde (~). By a common convention, tilde is used for backup files.

Exclude hidden files

If this option is selected, File Roller will not include files with the name starting with dot (.). By a common convention, these files are used for system information and applications' settings; they rarely contain user data.

Exclude files

This option allows you to exclude files whose name matches specified pattern. As with the Selection field, the pattern may use wildcards * and ?.

Ignore case

If this option is selected, File Roller will not distinguish between lower case and upper case symbols in the filename, so for example, pattern *.jpeg will match files with extensions jpeg, JPEG, or JpeG. If this option is not selected, File Roller will be case-sensitive, so *.jpeg will match files with extension jpeg but not JPEG.