Re: [Nautilus-list] Tar content view

[Darin Adler <darin bentspoon com>]

On 1/25/02 9:39 AM, "Michael Petnuch" <michael technologyreview org> wrote:

> Looking at the recent messages about regaining the functionality of the
> gmc program in respect to viewing a tar archive, I would like to offer
> to write it.  I just have a few questions.  Is it acceptable to use an
> external program like tar to untar the archives.  Also any pointers
> before I start writing would be appreciated.  Thanks.

The original design was that there's a module in gnome-vfs that knows how to
interpret tar archives and make them seem like files to any program using
gnome-vfs including Nautilus, using special URLs. There's a module in
gnome-vfs already. Look in gnome-vfs/modules. You might also ask on
gnome-vfs list about the syntax used for these special URLs. There's some
kind of chaining scheme where you attack the "tar" URL to the end of a
normal "file" URL, as I recall.

So the first part of this is to make sure that feature works, by finding out
what the special URLs were supposed to be like, and then typing them into
Nautilus and testing things like dragging files in and out of such windows.
Then find and fix the bugs that prevent it from working nicely.

The second part is to figure out how Nautilus should figure out to use that
kind of URL when you open a .tar archive. There's a first cut at this too,
but there's no reason to waste any time on this until the first step is
done. The tricky part about this is that we still want the "Go Up" button to
work, even though the URL looks nothing like the original.

Or you might find some totally different way to do it.

    -- Darin