Zipping a zip file

Samwise · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:43 pm Post subject: Zipping a zip file

Why do people keep zipping ODF documents. Most ODF documents (and, as far as I know, all ODF documents created with OpenOffice.org) are already zipped.

Depending on how the document has been zipped, unzipping it with the Finder will either produce a folder, or a document and a folder. In the first case, you need to change the extension from .ods.zip to .ods to be able to use the file, and in the latter case, changing the extension won't work (apparently, the document is corrupt, and the "repaired document" is empty), so you need to unzip the archive, and get an extra folder which is not needed.. The double-zipped file is sometimes smaller than the single-zipped one, but not by more than 10% - is it really worth it ?

But many ODF documents, like some attachments Bugzilla for example, are zipped !

Why do people keep zipping files that are already zipped ?

yoxi · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:55 pm Post subject:

Many people's experience (including mine) has been that a zipped doc is more likely to make it from start to finish in a net/email journey than an unzipped one - so perhaps it's force of habit (and especially for folk exchanging files in OS9, where there's resource fork data to be lost as your files pass through someone's winxx web server deathstar).

At least it's not .sit (or .hqx or .whateverthehell)

- padmavyuha

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Are people really doing this or is that Safari's bad behavior? Safari likes to probe into ODF files and concludes that it is really a zip file and, as a result, it acts smart and tries to make it behave like a zip file.

This behavior annoys me greatly so I never use Safari. This behavior, coupled with Safari's brain-dead habit of never checking that a downloaded file's byte size matches the bytes listed in the HTTP Content-length header (which causes Safari to treat truncated downloads as successful), make Safari a rather weak browser, IMHO.

Patrick

Samwise · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject:

aussie149 · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:45 pm Post subject: Zipped

Actually, I've been doing it for the files that I put on the user Guide website. I did it after complaint/s that people were trying to unzip the .odt file, because it looked like a zip file to them [or was it that they were using Safari, and the file got unzipped for them? - can't remember]. As you know, if you unzip a .odt file, you end up with an interesting but useless folder. So I thought I'd zip it and then prevent that happening. But I'm happy to stop doing it if sensibilities are offended. It takes ten seconds I might use for something else Smile

Peter

OPENSTEP · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject:

Yes, I have seen this garbage go on too. To be fair, it's a natural result...programs try to be too helpful to users at figuring out what to do, and OOo for using just a plain old ZIP archive format for the document (yes, it's useful to hack documents, but it's a rat's nest for all of those durned applications that don't understand opendocument!!).

The BZ apache server is configured to map the OpenDocument extensions to the proper MIME types. This must be Safari smoking crack. Same way it's overly helpful and tries to debinhex .hqx files or mount disk images automatically.

ed

sardisson · Town Crier Joined: Feb 01, 2004 Posts: 4588

I use Camino, and I've never seen a single case of this (except for Peter zipping up parts of his guide), so it must be Safari being brain-dead. I discovered some time ago that Safari likes to rewrite filenames when saving (as if it knows better than everyone...so...Microsoftian Sad

).

I'd like to rant about rtf and ".log" crashlogs, but... Wink

Smokey

OPENSTEP · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:59 pm Post subject:

Check if it's a mimetype thing on the server. I explicitly added in the opendocument types, but it hasn't helped Safari squat Wink

ed

LemonAid · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:57 am Post subject:

I avoid Safari because of the many little problems. Sad

I can't see using another non-standard program when Foxfire/SeaMonkey work fine AND follow standards.

Philip ( if only NeoOffice have a Browser/email/Calendar module! Just Kidding!!! Twisted Evil

)

Baggypants · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:02 am Post subject:

clearly ODF guys should have chosen their file compression as rar Twisted Evil

Samwise · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:25 am Post subject:

Baggypants · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 3:38 am Post subject:

OPENSTEP · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:31 pm Post subject:

I still think it's a bit looney about how they built in zip compression and then claimed "hey, we've got smaller files lolz!" when really they should've been comparing against compressed Word docs to be fair... Smile

ed

ovvldc · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:06 am Post subject:

When did you last see marketing department play fair?

-Oz

OPENSTEP · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:19 am Post subject:

Well, 20 years down the line, I think the whole "flouride prevents cavity" line in the 80s was pretty on target...

But that's a total stretch Very Happy

Though the chevy nova was also pretty on target. How many of those do you see on the roads today

ed

/biased against marketing
//but why do they always have the hot chikas?
///hehe byu...my bracket's screwed