Remove From My Forums

New Addin: Automatic Unzipper

General discussion
0

Sign in to vote
Hello!

Today I finished the development of an addin for WHS, and here is what it does:

It allows you to automatically uncompress a ZIP or RAR archive in your Shared Folders on your server.

This is very useful if you want to upload a list of files (e.g. holiday-photos) through the Web-Interface.

Up to now you had to select each file and add it to the upload queue.

But with this addin you can make an archive out of the files, upload it to the server, and it will get uncompressed!

Other options or functions:

- unzip only archives with a special prefix in the filename (if you don't want to unzip every archive)

- delete the archive after uncompressing

- create a folder for the contents of the archive

- select the shares that should be monitored for archives

- runs as a service

- languages: English and German

To download this addin, please go to http://www.home-server-blog.de/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/otfu.zip . A user-guide is also available, both in English and in German.

If you have any questions or found a bug, please send an email to alex.koeplinger [at] gmail.com or reply to this thread.

I hope my addin is useful to you,

greets, Alex

*EDIT 10/19/2007*

CAUTION: I found a bug in the uninstaller, that causes a major problem:

When the addin is uninstalled, the uninstall-routine accidently deletes some files that WHS needs, so the Console will crash at startup.

Here is what you have to do to solve the problem:

1. Login to your WHS either locally or via Remote Desktop

2. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server\

3. Make a backup copy of the files "WHSCommon.dll" and "qsmif.dll".

4. Open the Console and uninstall the addin

5. Copy back the two files

6. Launch Console and install the new version 1.0.5 which you get here: http://www.home-server-blog.de/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/otfu.zip

I am VERY sorry for this and I hope you will still use my addin...
- Changed type Jonas Svensson -FST- Saturday, January 24, 2009 8:44 PM
Saturday, June 30, 2007 4:52 PM

All replies

0

Sign in to vote
Alig

It works.

Comments:

Do not work when uploading to "user" folder
No icon created on console tab
have to refresh folder to see results of uploading and unzipping.

much needed add-in saves a lot of time when uploading multiple files.
Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:12 PM

ROUZA wrote:

Comments:

Do not work when uploading to "user" folder
No icon created on console tab
have to refresh folder to see results of uploading and unzipping.

much needed add-in saves a lot of time when uploading multiple files.

Hi,

1) It doesn't work in the users folder, because the service has no access to this folder due to security permissions

2) This is volitional, because you simply don't need a console-tab for it, there is the settings-tab where all settings can be made

3) This is by design, because it takes some time to unzip the archive

Greets, Alex

Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:38 PM

I installed and tried it out by uploading to the WHS Public Directory and created a directory there called Test. Almost exactly like your How To docutment ...settings and all. The add-in does not work for me. It simply uploads the file as usual.

Don't really like the idea of having to Rename the file first. Extra steps would be a pain if you were uploading a lot of files at once to the server and had to rename them all.

Nice effort though. Couple more tweaks and you may be on to something.

Sunday, July 1, 2007 4:17 AM

Mhhh,
maybe you did not refreshed the website ( leave the folder and go back into it ). It depends how fast your server is and how large the folder was which you uploaded. It may take some time to extract the folder.

Furthermore you do not have to rename the archive, uncheck "Unzip only archives with prefix ‚unzip_´" and every zip or rar archive should be extracted...

I, personally, like the idea of having more control about what is going on, so I rename the archives which should be rextracted by the server.

Just a second ago I tried the final version at /server/public/xyz/ and OnTheFlyUnzipper worked perfectly

Sunday, July 1, 2007 10:16 AM

I really don't know . It's not showing the zip folder and the unzipped folder after upload like in the PDF instructions. An I have it set exactly the same. It only shows the original file as if it was never zipped...instantly. I did refresh the page also. Either the add-in is not working or something...cause from my vantage point it did nothing different. ;-(

Even still. I'm not totally sure what this add-in is supposed to do.... I guess it's to compress files I send to my own server via the web??? I have winzip so I can send it that way without all this configuration. If I could get it to work...and it does save some time/trouble....it would be cool if it could be used while downloading from a friends WHS... ;-)

I'm not trying to be evil, it's just not obvious what this add-in does or what time/effort it is supposed to save us..

Please clarify for me....

Sunday, July 1, 2007 3:47 PM

Hi!

I think you misunderstood something.

This addin is supposed to uncompress archives sent to the server via web and not the other way round .

It saves much time and bandwith when you want to upload many files to your server.

Greets, Alex

Sunday, July 1, 2007 3:56 PM

OOOOOOH. So that's it! Like I mentioned in my last post.... I have to already have a Zip file and then upload that to WHS. Right?

Sunday, July 1, 2007 3:59 PM

Yes, you have to zip your files locally and then upload this zip-archive to your server

Sunday, July 1, 2007 4:01 PM

Now we're on the same page...LOL!

I tried it with and without the rename of unzip_. (I like not renaming it first and then having it delete the archive afterwards). Works nicely! Thanks for the "how to" info.

I tried to install it on a buddy's CTP version of WHS, it installs but it will not show in the settings area. I assume it only works with RC1?

Sunday, July 1, 2007 4:12 PM

Hmm, I never tried it on CTP, but thanks for the info.

I think it has something to do with the different versions of the DLLs.

Happy to hear that it works for you,

Alex

Sunday, July 1, 2007 5:07 PM

Yeah, I heard there were some changes that could affect some functionality. But that's ok, cause RC1 and RTM are what we will be using any way. Everything else is history.

Thanks again for settin' me straight.

Nice add-in

Sunday, July 1, 2007 6:38 PM

You know what? This would work great with Andrew's Whiist add-in with the photo page option he has, which I use both.

If on vacation, upload a single picture zip folder and your have your add-in auto unzip and delete the archive.....and BAM. Your latest vacation pics are posted in one pre-labeled folder(s) for friends and family to see... nice.

Sunday, July 1, 2007 7:19 PM

Hi judgeschambers,

thanks a lot. I have combined the two addins, too.

But, since I have worked on the describtion of the Addin, at least on the german one, I would like to know if the describtion ( english or german ) is so missunderstanding/ missleading. Do we have to change the describtion in some points?

Monday, July 2, 2007 8:06 AM

I clicked on the link you gave and all the links on that website are all in german Indifferent

So how do i know which one works and which one doesnt ?

w/b Thanks

Lauren x

Friday, August 24, 2007 5:00 PM

Oh, I'm sorry for this, the link to the addin was removed by accident ....

I contacted the webmaster and the link will soon be online again.

Thanks for notifiying me about the mistake Smile

Greets, Alex

*edit* Download-link is now online again, look at the top of the list!

Friday, August 24, 2007 6:20 PM

This looks good but I'd like to be able to specify a regex to determine which files should be unzipped.

What account context does the add-in run as? If you run as system than you should have access to the users folder.

Friday, August 24, 2007 8:07 PM

Aha, I will see what I can do about your suggestion, I'm currently working on a new addin, but maybe I have some time

The service runs under the system account, but I have to say that I didn't test this scenario much (it didn't work once during a test, but maybe this was caused by a bug I hopefully fixed later ). Can you test it and give me feedback?

Greets, Alex

Saturday, August 25, 2007 9:04 AM

Hi Alex,

This should be a useful utility.

A questiona and a suggestion:

1. I unticked 'Create a new directory...' and ticked 'Delete archives after unzipping'. I then uploaded a zip file and it extracted into a new directory. Is it possible for OTFU to unzip to the folder the zip is uploaded to?

2. If you select a folder to monitor you should also have the option to automatically monitor all subfolders, without having to monitor them individually.

Thanks.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 5:04 PM

Hi!

If you untick "Create a new directory..." then it should unzip in the folder where the zip file was uploaded to. (maybe there was a folder inside the zip-archive?)

Thanks for your suggestion, in a new version this will definitely be included

Regards, Alex

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 5:29 PM

Thanks for your quick reply.

I thought that would be the case. There were just 2 files in the zip archive I was testing with but I'll play with it a bit more and see how it goes.

I look forward to the next version.

Thanks again.

Ewan

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 7:26 PM

CAUTION: I found a bug in the uninstaller, that causes a major problem:

When the addin is uninstalled, the uninstall-routine accidently deletes some files that WHS needs, so the Console will crash at startup.

Here is what you have to do to solve the problem:

1. Login to your WHS either locally or via Remote Desktop

2. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server\

3. Make a backup copy of the files "WHSCommon.dll" and "qsmif.dll".

4. Open the Console and uninstall the addin

5. Copy back the two files

6. Launch Console and install the new version 1.0.5 which you get here: http://www.home-server-blog.de/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/otfu.zip

I am VERY sorry for this and I hope you will still use my addin...

Friday, October 19, 2007 6:10 PM

But how do we zip the file?

Friday, February 22, 2008 3:43 PM

Chaneeel wrote:

But how do we zip the file?

There are many ways to zip files, you can install the free program 7-zip to zip files on your PC. Or you can Google on Zip to find programs that will zip files.

Saturday, February 23, 2008 11:10 AM

Unfortunately I have uninstalled your add-in before I saw this message so now I have this problem.

Can you please tell me how to solve this please, as I cannot get into my console?

Thanks.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 12:09 AM

Hi!

I'm very sorry that you're experiencing the problem.

Have you already installed PP1? If not, this should solve the problem because the (now missing) files get updated/replaced during the installation.

Please let me know if you need additional help

Just out of curiosity: were did you get the version with the bug from? It shouldn't be online anywhere since I found the bug.

Regards, Alex

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 6:23 AM

Another solution comes into my mind:

Connect to the Administrator Desktop of your server via Remote-Desktop-Connection and uninstall the Add-in by going to Control Panel -> Add and Remove Programs.

Now reinstall the Add-in (the one with the bug) by double-clicking on the .msi file and following the instructions. It should then have copied the two missing files to C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server\ .

Backup the files, start the Console and uninstall the Add-In. The files will be gone again, but this time you have a copy of them Wink

Let me know if this helps.

Regards, Alex

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 6:28 AM

I didn't realise PP1 was officially out.

I've installed PP1 and that seems to have fixed my problem.

Thanks again.

Thursday, July 31, 2008 12:48 AM

Asked by:

New Addin: Automatic Unzipper

General discussion

All replies