LHA Expander

Description

LHA Expander is a drag and drop utility for LHA file decompressing. LHA Expander can handle general LHA archives (.lzh, .lha, lzs), self extracting archives (.exe, .com, .x) and MacLHA archives (which was encoded in MacBinary format first, then compressed).

Installation

LHA Expander uses Internet Config to share some setting with other Internet applications. So you should run Internet Config and save your preference before launching LHA Expander. If you don't save your preferences in Internet Config, LHA Expander will have no ways to refer DOS extension to Macintosh type and creator.

Latest version of Internet Config is here:
<ftp://ftp.quinn.echidna.id.au/Others/Quinn/Config/>
<ftp://ftp.share.com/internet-configuration/>

Open "Map" control panel and set correct time zone. LHA Expander need's your time zone to set time stamps for expanded files.

Move LHA Expander application to a convenient location on your hard drive. You may need to rebuild your desktop if LHA Expander will not initially accept drag and drop files.

System Requirements

LHA Expander requires System 7.0 or later.

LHA Expander is Apple event aware, 32-bit clean, FAT Application, '040 cache and virtual memory compatible. LHA Expander well works in background, so you can continue to do other things with your computer.

Using LHA Expander

Expand archive files:

1. In the Finder, select one or more icons that you want to expand.
2. Drag them over the LHA Expander icon until it is highlighted.
3. Let go of the mouse/trackball button.

Expand archive files in manual way:

1. Double click the LHA Expander icon to open the application.
2. Choose the "Expand..." command from the File menu.
3. Select the desired archive file or folder which contains archive file(s) to expand. The "Show:" pop-up menu allows you to specify what file is displayed in file list. See below for detail:

General archives: Files with type 'LHA ' or 'LARC' and files with extension '.lzh', 'lha', 'lzs' are displayed.
Self extractin archives: Files with extension '.exe', '.com', '.x' are displayed.
All archives: Both general archives and self extractin archives are displayed.
All files: All files are displayed.

4. Check the "Open" button.

Preferences:

Choose the "Preferences..." command from the File menu.

1. The group of "Destination:" radio buttons indicate where the expanded files will be created. Selecting "Same as original" will use the folder where the archive file resides. Selecting "Ask:" will prompt you for a destination at runtime. Selecting "Use:" will allow you to specify a folder of your choice.

2. The "Select" button allows you to choose a specific folder as the destination folder. if LHA Expander can't find this folder, Setting of "Destination:" radio buttons will changes to "Same as original".

3. The group of "Create surrounding folder:" radio buttons indicate when surrounding folder will be created. Selecting "When the archive contains multiple items" will create a surrounding folder when archive contains multiple items in it's root. Selecting "Always" will always create a surrounding folder. Selecting "Never" will never create a surrounding folder.

4. Checking the "Delete original" check box deletes the archive from the disk after it has been expanded. Selecting this option will causes all expanded archive will be deleted with no backup copies. Be sure your data is backed up or expendable.

Tips

- If you hold down the Control key when dropping the files on the icon, or when choosing "Expand..." from the menu, LHA Expander will delete the original archives after it has beed expanded. You are not warned, so use this feature carefully.

- If you hold down the Option key when dropping the files on the icon, or when choosing "Expand..." from the menu, you will be able to select a folder where the expanded files will be created.

About distribution

LHA Expander is freeware. Freeware is copyrighted software and freely distributed. No charges are needed for individual, non-commercial uses.

For commercial distribution, LHA Expander must be licensed. To contact to the author, see below for author's mail address.

There's no guarantee about troubles caused by the existence of this program or by using this program.

The author will not have any obligations for modifying this program, if there happens some trouble.

Technical information

LHA Expander can handle archives which have level 0-3 header and compress method -lh0-, -lh1-, -lh2-, -lh3-, -lh4-, -lh5-, -lh6-, -lh7-, -lzs-, -lz4-, -lz5- and -lhd-.

If archive contains files encoded in MacBinary, LHA Expander will not use Internet Config for extention mapping and set file attributes described in MacBinary header.

LHA archive only contains last modification date/time information. LHA Expander set file or folder's date/time to
if file is expanded:
both creation and modification date/time is set to that time.
if folder is expanded:
creation date/time is set to that time, modification date/time is set to current time.

If archive file has created with MacLHA and has level 2 header, it contains incorrect date/time value. If you expand it with LHA Expander, incorrect date/time value will be set to expanded file. To avoid this problem, expand such file with MacLHA.

Special thanks to

Haruyasu Yoshizaki for LHA version 2.11 source file.
Tsugio Okamoto for LHa for UNIX version 1.14c source file.
Peter Lewis for MacBinary II format documentation.
Everyone who created Internet Config system.
Fumio Rokkaku for UpdateFolder and StdGetFolder source file.
Everyone who send bug report and suggestion. Especially D-FORCE. Thanks a lot !

Contacting the author

Send bug report, suggestion of new features or other to:

E-mail:
sekino@osk2.3web.ne.jp (preferred)
sekino@phys.wani.osaka-u.ac.jp

Original file name: LHA Expander Read Me (E) - converted on Thursday, 3 February 2000, 11:59