Copyright: Canyon Software


Program Description

Drag And Zip is a set of utilities that makes managing Zip and other compressed files very easy.  With Drag And Zip you can use Explorer or any file manager that supports drag and drop to manage ZIP, LZH, GZ, TAR, ARJ, ZOO, CAB and ZOO  files as well as files encoded in MIME, Uuencode, Xxencode and Bin/Hex..  With its built in routines to zip and unzip files, Drag And Zip makes it very easy to compress files into Zip files and to extract files from Zip files.  You can also MIME encode and Uuencode the resulting Zip files or make self extracting files out of them.

Drag And Zip includes a plug in for Netscape and Internet Explorer called Browse And Zip.  With Browse And Zip you can open Zip files remotely without having to download them first.


Creating a Zip File
How Do I Make A Zip File

Wizard Way

Run Drag And Zip from the Start Menu or run Explorer or Drag And File and select the files that you want to compress.  With your mouse, right click on the seleted files.  A menu will pop up when you let go of the mouse botton.  Choose “Create Zip File (Drag And Zip) from the popup menu.

The Drag And Zip Wizard will pop up.  If you are knowledgeable about Zip file and want more control, click on the Advanced button for the Advanced interface.  If the Advanced window comes up and you want the easier Wizard interface, click on the Wizard button to switch to the wizard interface.

The first screen of the Zip wizard just welcomes you to Drag And Zip and gives you a chance to switch to the Advanced interface.  Click on the Next button to proceed.

Zip Wizard, Screen 2

The next screen shows the files that you want to put in the Zip file.  If you’ve run Drag And Zip from a context menu then there will already be files displayed in this screen.  If you ran Drag And Zip from the Start Menu then the list box will be empty.  You can add files to this window by clicking on the Add button and browsing for them or you can drag the files from Explorer to the list box and drop them there.  If there are any files in the group that you don’t want to put in the Zip file, put the highlight on them and choose the Delete key.  When you are done choosing files, click on the Next button.

In the next wizard screen you are asked to name the Zip file and are required to tell Drag And Zip where to put it.  You can give the Zip file any name you want.  You should give it a descriptive name so you know what it is when you see it at a later time.  By default, Drag And Zip will put the Zip file in a folder called C:\My Zip Files.  If you want to put it in another folder, enter this information in the field or use the Browse button to find it.  When you are finished, click on the Next button

You can make a regular Zip file or a Self Extracting one.  A regular Zip file has a .ZIP extension and a user will need a program like Drag And Zip to open it.  A Self-Extracting Zip file is like a program that you can launch.  When you launch the Self-Extracting Zip file you can extract files from it without the help of any other programs.  When you’ve made your choice for the type of Zip file, click on the Next button.

If you want to change any of the information you’ve entered, you can always click on the Back button to go to a previous screen in the wizard.

Finally you can click on the Finish button and Drag And Zip will create the Zip file.  A progress box will come up showing you that Drag And Zip is working. When Drag And Zip is finished, it will display a message box telling you that the Zip file was successfully created.


Making A Zip File Advanced
Advanced Way

Run Drag And Zip from the Start Menu or Run Explorer or Drag And File and select the files that you want to compress.  With your mouse, right click on the selected files.  Choose “Create Zip File (Drag And Zip) from the popup menu.

Create Zip File Dialog Box

The Main Window of the Drag And Zip comes up.  From this window you can add or remove files from the Zip file, name and place the file and tell Drag And Zip how to make the file.

Files to Zip

At the bottom of this dialog box is a list box with the title, Files to Zip.  If you ran Drag And Zip by clicking on a pop up menu in Explorer or Drag And File then this window will have the files that you selected in it.  You can easily add or remove files by clicking on the Add or Delete buttons.

Zip Filename

In this field you enter the name of the Zip file that you want to create.

Output Directory

Enter the directory where you want the Zip file to be created.  If you are unsure of the directory name, you can use the browse function to find it.  If you enter a non-existent directory, Drag And Zip will give you the option to create it.

Zip Subdirectories

This is equivalent to the "-r" argument with PKZIP.  When you choose this option, Drag And Zip will not only zip the files in the directories that you’ve selected, it will zip any sub directories that are in the directories and any sub directories in the sub directories, compressing all the files in the directory branch.

Store Pathnames in Subdirectories

This choice is equivalent to the "-p" option in PKZIP.  If you are putting any directories in the Zip file, this option with save the directory information with all the files in the directories.

Store All Pathnames

This option will save the path names of every file that you are zipping.

Make Self Extracting File (EXE)

A self extracting Zip file has an EXE extension and you launch it like a program to expand the files in it.  You can give a self extracting Zip file to anyone and they won’t have to have an unzipping program to get the files compressed in it.  If you choose this option, Drag And Zip will give you more options on how to make the Self Extractor when making the Zip file.

Use DOS Compatible Names

Drag And Zip can create Zip files with long file names, long directory names and names in mixed case but you might have trouble extracting these files under DOS or Windows 3.1x which does not support long and mixed case names.  If you need to create a Zip file for a DOS environment, see that this option is selected.

Have the Zip File Span Multiple Disks

Drag And Zip allows you to Zip files onto multiple floppy diskettes. You select the “Multiple disks" check box to enable this option.  You must be making a Zip file on a floppy diskette or removable drive to use this option.

Create Zip

When you are finished, click on the Create Zip button and your Zip file will be created.


Additional Zip Options
More Zip Options

This first tab in Drag And Zip dialog box gives you the most of the options that you would want when making a Zip file so you can probably just click on the Create Zip button and finish.  If you want even more control over the Zip file, you can choose the other tabs for more options.

Drag And Zip Options Tab

Add

This will create a new Zip file or add files to an existing Zip file.  This is the default action of Drag And Zip.

Freshen

This will only replace files in an existing Zip file with those selected files that are newer than the files in the Zip file.

Update

This is like Freshen but in addition to replacing existing files with newer files, it will also add the files that aren't already in the Zip file.

Move Files

This option will delete the original files after they are placed in the Zip file.  This option is useful when you want to make more space on your hard disk by zipping files.

Compression

Use the slider to go from no compression to maximum compression.

Password Protect

If you are making a Zip file you can also encrypt it so that you need a password to extract files from it.  When unzipping the file, Drag And Zip will ask you for the password before unzipping it.  Use this option with caution because if you loose the password you won’t be able to unzip the file.  This option is the same as the -s option when using PKZIP.

Path For Temporary Files

Drag And Zip normally creates temporary files and temporary directories in its home directory.  This may not be possible if you are running Drag And Zip from a network and you don’t have write access to the DZ home directory.  For conditions like this, you can specify a directory where Drag And Zip can store temporary files.

Default Folder

You have two choices of the default output directory that Drag And Zip will enter into the zip dialogs.  One is the current directory, which is the directory that you dragged the files from.  The other is the directory that you used the last time that you used Drag And Zip.

Encoding

If you will be sending the Zip file as part of a mail attachment on the internet, you might want to MIME encode or Uuencode the file.  You can have this done automatically by checking the appropriate box.

A Uuencoded file will have a UUE extension.  MIME encoded files will have a MME extension.

Excluding Files

Sometimes you might want to specify a number of Directories or files that you want Drag And Zip to Exclude when creating a Zip file.  To do this, click on the Exclude files tab and enter the files and directories that you want Drag And Zip to exclude.  You can enter specifications with wild cards such *.exe or c:\windows\system\*.dll.


How do I unzip files
How Do I Get Files Out of Zip Files

Dragging And Dropping from Explorer

The easiest way to extract files from a Zip file is to run Explorer or Drag And File, highlight the Zip file and drag it with the right mouse button pressed down to the folder of your choice.  When you release the right mouse button, a pop up menu will come up.  One of the options will be “Extract files too…”.  Instead of the three dots the folder where you dropped the files will appear.  Choose that option and the files will be extracted to that folder.

Another options is to just right click on the Zip file and choose the Extract To (Unzip files) option.  You will get a dialog box where you can choose your target directory as well as check boxes to create stored directories and overwrite existing files.

Extract To Dialog Box

To learn more about the Create Folders Stored in Zip file and the Overwrite Existing Files options, see the section on using Zip View.


Extracting Files With Zip View
Extracting Files Using Zip View

Running Zip View

Sometimes you want more control of extracting files from a Zip file.  Sometimes you don’t want to extract all the files or you want to specify different options than the ones you have with the right mouse button extraction.  In that case, right click on the Zip file and choose the Open Archive (Zip View) option.

The Zip View window will come up.

Zip View in Directory Tree View

Sometimes Zip files have the directories where they came from embedded in the file.  By default, Zip View comes up with that directory information is a left hand window like Explorer.  Some users like the more traditional way of showing embedded directories as part of the file listing.  This option can be toggled on and off by clicking on the right most button on the Zip View toolbar.  That’s the button with the folder pictures on it.

Zip View in Embedded Directory View

Unlike other Zip file managers, Zip View is a multiple document application where you can have more than one window open with different Zip files in each.

To extract files from Zip View you select them the same way you do in Explorer and either drag them to the directory of your choice or click on the Extract button.

Zip View has two extraction interfaces.  Wizard and Advanced.  You can easily switch between each one by clicking on the appropriate button.


Extracting Files with the Wizard Interface

The Wizard interface walks you step by step through the extraction of files from a Zip file.  The first step is to choose whether you want to extract all the files or just the selected ones.  The next step is to choose a folder where to put the extracted files.  There is a browse button to make this step easier.  Finally you click on the Finish button and the files are extracted.


Extracting Files with the Advanced Interface

Zip View Extract Files Dialog Box

The advanced interface gives you a little more control over how you extract files from a Zip file.  There are a series of check boxes on the left hand side. The first check box is Overwrite Existing files.  Normally if the file that you are extracting will overwrite an existing file, you will be warned before it is overwritten.  Choosing this option will suppress this warning.

The next option is Create Directories Stored in Zip File.

If your Zip file has directory information stored in it, then this option will recreate those directories when the files are extracted.

The third option is Unzip all Subdirectories.  This option is available if you are viewing the Zip file with the directory tree on the left and the highlight is on one of the directories.  Choosing this option will unzip all the files in the highlighted directory and all subdirectories of the highlighted directory.

The forth option is Unzip New and Newer Files Only.  If files with the same name already exist in the directory that you want to unzip to, Zip View will compare the dates and only unzip files with newer dates or files that don’t already exist in the target directory.

On the right hand side are three radio buttons.  These allow you to select the files to unzip.  If you are running Zip View with the directory tree on the left hand side then you will have the option to just unzip the selected folder.  The other options are to unzip all the files or just the tagged/selected files.

If the Zip file that you are working with has been encrypted with a password, there will be a field for you to enter the password.  Passwords are case sensitive.  You won’t be able to extract files from the file unless the correct password is entered.

When you have made your choices, click on OK and Zip View will extract the files.


Installing
Installing Drag And Zip

Installation of Drag And Zip and Zip View is very easy with the setup program provided.  From the Start button choose the run option.  In the Run dialog box, type the full path where the files are, and the program name SETUP.EXE.  For example, if you were installing from drive A:, you would enter "A:\SETUP.EXE".  If you were installing from the "DZ" directory of drive C:, you would enter "C:\DZ\SETUP.EXE".

Installing

When you use the Setup program to install Drag And Zip it will first ask you which drive and directory you would like to install Drag And Zip to.

The Setup program will then create a folder of shortcuts called Drag And Zip and put the Drag And Zip, Zip View and Setup icons in it.  At the end of the installation program, you will be asked if you want to have Drag And Zip associated with the Zip extension and other extensions that it supports.  If you do this, then Zip View will be available when you right click on a file and will also come up if you double click on a file.  If you don’t choose this option you will have to run Zip View separately from the Start Menu to use it.  Zip View also has an option under the options menu where you can create the necessary file associations.

Uninstall options

Drag And Zip comes with its own uninstall program.  You can run it directly or from Control Panel in Windows 95. Makes sure that Drag And Zip is not running when you run the uninstall program.


Self Extracting Zip Files
Making Self Extracting Zip Files

How to Make a Self Extracting Zip File

You can make a Self Extracting Zip file when you create a Zip file or you can make one out of a Zip file that’s already been created.  To make one when creating the Zip file, check the “Make Self Extracting File” option from the Zip dialog box.  To make a Self Extractor from an existing Zip file, right click on the file from within Explorer or any file manager that supports Windows shell extensions and choose Make Self Extractor from the pop up menu.  The Self Extractor Dialog Box will come up.

Self Extractor Dialog

Platform: The first choice you have is whether to make a self extractor to run under Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98 and NT.  If you’re not sure, it’s best to make one that will run under Windows 3.1 because that kind will also run under Windows 95/98/NT but not vice versa.  If you know that the file will run under Windows 3.1, make sure you don’t include any long file names in your Zip file or make sure the Use DOS Compatible Names option when creating the Zip file.

Dialog Box Caption:  When you run a Self Extracting Zip file you will get a dialog box asking you where to extract the files to.  By default, the caption of this Dialog Box will be “Drag And Zip – Self Extractor”.  However you can easily change that caption with the by putting the caption of your choice in this field.

Automatically Extract Files: You can also make the self extractor automatically extract all the files to a specific directory when it is run without any input from the user.  You activate this option by putting the extract path in this field.  If the self extractor cannot find the path when it is running, it will try to create it.

Auto Launch: In addition to just extracting all the files without user input, you can have the self extractor automatically launch a file once the extraction is done.  This way you can use the self extractor as an install program.  To activate this feature, highlight one of the files in the list box at the bottom and check the box that says “”Auto-Launch this file”.

Click on OK and Drag And Zip will create the self extractor.


Additional Zip View Functions

Zip View Does More Than Extract Files

You can do a lot more in Zip View than just highlight files in a Zip file and Extract them.  Additional features include:

View/Quick View

Clicking on the binoculars button or choosing “Quick View” from the context menu will have Zip View extract the file from the Zip file and load up a file viewer so you can see the contents of the file.  If you are running under Windows 95/98/NT, the built in Quick View will be used unless Canyon Software’s viewer Drag And View is available.  If neither of these are available, Zip View will use its built in file viewer. The file being viewed will only be extracted temporarily.  If you want the file extracted permanently, you must choose the extract button from the button bar.

If you would rather use another viewer, you can do so through the Zip View Settings dialog.

Delete

You can delete any file or group of tagged files from the Zip file by clicking on the Delete button.

Launch

Clicking on "Launch" will extract the highlighted file from the Zip file and run it if it is a program or run it with its associated program if it is a data file or graphic.  If no program association exists for the file, you will be able to choose one.

Working With Encoded Files

Drag And Zip allows you to view and extract files that are MIME encoded, Uuencoded, Xxencoded and Bin/Hex encoded.  Just like with a Zip file, you right click on one of these files in Windows Explorer and choose Zip View from the popup menu.

If the encoded file is a Zip file, Zip View will decode it to a temporary directory and display the Zip files listing.  Then you can work with the file like an ordinary Zip file.  If the encoded file is a data file or a program, Zip View will list it in its window.  Then just like a file in a Zip file you can view, launch and extract the file.

Scan

Drag And Zip has a built-in version of the Integrity Master virus scanner licensed from Stiller Research.  All you need to do is click on the Scan button to check a Zip file for possible viruses.  Integrity Master will run and the results placed in a dialog box.  You can also install an external virus scanner.

Check Out

Check out is to try out files that you’ve downloaded to see if you like them or not.  Normally you would have to first extract the files and then run the installation program.  If you didn't like the program you would then have to delete it manually.  Check Out will do all of that automatically for you.  Check Out temporarily unzips a file and puts the extracted files in a "Check Out" menu group so you can "Check them out".  When you're all done you can delete the extracted files and the "Check Out" folder automatically, or if you want to keep the group, you can save it under another name.

There is also an option to scan the files for viruses before putting them in a program group.

Open

You can also open Zip files by using the Open button.

Exit (File Menu)

Click on this menu entry to exit Zip View.

Send as Mail (File Menu)

This option will use Exchange to email the Zip file..

Uuencode File / MIME Encode File (File Menu)

This option will MIME Encode or Uuencode the file so you can send it as an email attachment.  Uuencoded files will be given a UUE extension and MIME encoded files a MME extension.

Convert a Zip File to an Exe File

See Converting a Zip File to and Exe File.


Changing Drag And Zip's settings
Changing Zip View’s Settings

Settings (Options Menu)

Choosing the settings option will bring up the Settings dialog box:

Settings Dialog Box

Interface

Check the box indicating if you want the Wizard (easy) interface or the Advanced (full featured) interface.

Unzip Files To

This option lets you choose the default output directory to unzip files to.  The choices are:

Current Directory - the directory where the file you're viewing currently resides.

Previous Zip Directory - the last directory that you extracted files to.

Default Unzip Path - Enter the default Unzip Path in the field to the right.

Anti-Virus

Drag And Zip has a special built-in version of Integrity Master virus scanner licensed from Stiller Research. By default this option will be selected.  Zip View also supports McAfee’s Scan 95, Scan and Norton Anti Virus for Windows 95.  If you have either of these programs installed, you can choose them from the drop down menu.

Path for Temporary Files

Enter a path which Zip View can use to store temporary files in.

Viewer

Enter the viewing program that you want Drag And Zip to use to view a file from within a Zip file.  If there is no viewing program installed, Drag And Zip will default to the Windows 95/98/NT Quick View program.


Getting Help

If you have questions or problems with Drag And Zip, Zip View or Fileman Launcher, help is free for all registered users.

You can reach me by phone, fax, e-mail or US mail at the numbers below:

Canyon Software

1537 Fourth St., Suite 131

San Rafael, CA 94901

USA

Phone	(415) 453-9779

Fax	(415) 453-6195

Internet	support@canyonsw.com


Zip Backup Sets

Drag And Zip allows you to create Zip backup sets to completely automate making zip files.  You create a Zip Set from the Zip dialog box.  Choose the zip parameters that you want and then choose Save Set.  Drag And Zip will save the Zip Set in a DZZ file.  This file will have a list of the files that you want to zip plus all of the zip parameters. Zip Sets can only use built-in zipping and cannot make self extracting zip files.

Once a zip set is created, you can double click on the DZZ file to automatically recreate the zip file.  Or you can run Drag And Zip with the DZZ file as a command line argument with an at sign ‘@’ in front of it.  Like “DZ32 @ZIPSET.DZZ”.

The DZZ format is text based so other programs can easily create one and then run Drag And Zip to create the zip file.

Zip Backup Set Format

The Zip Backup Set format is very similar to a Windows INI file so it is easy to understand and easy for a user to create one.

The set consists of two headings: FileList and ZipOptions.

Under the FileList heading you list the files to be zipped each on a new line with there complete paths like this:

[FileList]

C:\WINWORD\DOCS\DOC1.DOC

C:\WINWORD\DOCS\LETTER.DOC

C:\PROGRAM FILES\DRAG AND ZIP\ZIPFILE.TXT

The FileList section can be 16k bytes long.

The Zip options section contains the zip file name and the way you want the zip file made.

Here is a sample ZipOptions section:

In the example and documentation below the choices are presented in uppercase.  This is just done for consistency in the example.  The choices can be either in upper or lower case.

[ZipOptions]

zipfile=C:\ZIPFILES\MYZIP

compression=NONE

action=ADD

recursedirs=NO

storerecurse=NO

storepaths=NO

move=NO

multidisk=FORMATLOW

encrypt=NO

password=

dosnames=NO

uppercase=NO

zipfile This field contains the name of the resulting zip file.  This is the only field that is necessary.  The other fields are optional and have defaults if they are not included in the DZZ files.

compression Choices are NORMAL, NONE and MAX.  If this field is not included the default in NORMAL

action  Choices are ADD, UPDATE and FRESHEN.  These are the same as the PKZIP versions of these options.  If this field is left out the default is ADD.

recursedirs Choices are YES and NO.  Default is NO.  This option is like the -r option in PKZIP and will zip all the subdirectories of a directory in the FileList section.

storerecurse Choices are YES and NO.  If YES, then recursdirs must be yes too.  This option is like the -p option in PKZIP and will store the names of the directories recursed into.

storepaths Choices are YES and NO.  If storerecures isn’t chosen this option will store paths of all the files zipped and not just the ones in directories recursed into.  This is like the -P option in PKZIP.

move Choices are YES and NO.  A yes will move the files.  Default for this option is NO.

multidisk Choices are NONE, FORMAT, FORMATLOW and WIPEDISK.  These are the same as the PKZIP functions of the same name.  The default for this option is NONE.

encrypt Choices are YES and NO.  This is the same as the -s option in PKZIP and will create a zip file that needs a password to unzip.  Default for this option is NO.

password  If encrypt is YES, then this field will hold the password to zip the file with.

dossnames Choices are YES and NO.  A YES converts long file names and directory names to their short DOS counterparts.  This is good if you will be unzipping the file in DOS or Windows 3.1.  Default is NO.

uppercase Choices are YES and NO.  A YES here will force all file and directory names in the zip file to be in upper case.  This option is provided to make the zip file compatible with DOS and Windows 3.1.  The default for this option is NO.