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ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 7:10 pm
by admin
Airsoft Softwair, the unstoppable coding machine, is back on your screen with a brand new plugin for Hollywood: zip.hwp! This plugin allows Hollywood scripts to conveniently read and write zip archives. It uses Hollywood 6.0's new file and directory adapter plugin interfaces which allow you to iterate through zip archives as if they were normal directories. Files within zip archives can also be accessed as if the zip archive was a normal directory. It just doesn't get any easier! With zip.hwp it is not necessary to unpack a file stored in a zip archive to a temporary file before it can be opened. Hollywood 6.0's file adapter plugin interface allows direct streaming from the zip archive into the respective file handler without any temporary file overhead. This makes it even possible to stream music or video directly from a zip file!

Additionally, zip.hwp also offers a range of functions to read, modify, and write zip archives. New zip archives can be created and existing zip archives can be opened and modified. There are lots of functions which allow you to read, change, and write attributes of files stored in zip archives. On top of that, zip.hwp also supports reading and storing password-protected files with strong AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256 encryption (though note that on AmigaOS 3 and AROS it is not recommended to encrypt archives because the randomizer on these operating systems isn't strong enough for cryptography purposes.)

The zip plugin requires at least Hollywood 6.0 and is provided free of charge for all users of Hollywood. Note that it is recommended that you use at least Hollywood 7.0 because with earlier versions there is no support for archives which contain files with non-ASCII names. The zip plugin is available in versions for AmigaOS 3, AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, AROS (x86), Windows (x86,x64), Mac OS X (ppc, x86, x64), Linux (ppc, arm, x86, x64) and Android. On top of that, the plugin comes with 30 pages of documentation in various formats like PDF, HTML, AmigaGuide, and CHM.

zip.hwp is now available for free download from the official Hollywood portal at http://www.hollywood-mal.com/

This release was brought to you by Airsoft Softwair - the hardest working men in code business.

Re: ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 7:31 pm
by lazi
Very nice!
Looks useful in a vast number of areas.

If I look into the crystal sphere I can see that in the near future somebody will create a full-blown backup solution that works on Amiga too.

Re: ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 8:47 pm
by jPV
lazi wrote:If I look into the crystal sphere I can see that in the near future somebody will create a full-blown backup solution that works on Amiga too.
I don't know about that... ZIP archives don't preserve Amiga's file attributes. You'd still need some custom two layer archiving or something if files are put inside a zip archive.

Re: ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:49 pm
by lazi
This is why we need an application for that. Storing Amiga attributes and restore.
This new plugin with other Hollywood features are very flexible tools for that.

Re: ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 8:20 am
by Allanon
Great News! Thank you Andreas!

Re: ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 4:17 pm
by airsoftsoftwair
@jPV/lazi:
Amiga specific stuff could be stored as zip file comments. Zip file comments don't even have to be user-readable strings but those comment strings can also contain binary data so this is quite a powerful tool because it allows you to associate all kinds of additional information with a file.

Re: ZIP Plugin 1.0 released

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:34 pm
by jPV
Yeah, there are ways and this would be one option to make really cool backup program, but I'd still consider if it would be sensible to tie backups to one certain program, which would be closed source in the worst case... the program might stop working at some point or with some systems, and if the author isn't around anymore, it could make your backups worthless or at least incomplete. If backups would be stored in some generic Amiga compatible format, which could be unarchived/restored by other means too, I'd find it more trustworthy.

But of course this kind of backup program could be a nice option and users could decide if they trust it or not :) Some checksums and other data could be included too... or even different versions of files etc...