Total Commander

I reckon the "Background" button for copy is very handy because when I use it I can get control of TC back while the operation keeps going on. Is it possible to send the extraction of zip or rar files to background?
I think it'd be a very useful feature if the future versions contained that feature.

Hello, nologin.

Is it possible to send the extraction of zip or rar files in background?
I think it'd be a very useful feature if the future versions contained that feature.

As far as I can tell, Total Commander v7.04a is this future version.
Check the available wincmd.ini parameters, please (help section 4b):

AlwaysPackInBackground=0
1: zip in background
2: zip+external packers in background
3: like 2, but run external packers minimized

AlwaysUnpackInBackground=0
1: unzip in background
2: unzip+external unpackers in background
3: like 2, but run external unpackers minimized

Seems as if this is one of the too numerous useful settings which are missing from the Configuration dialogues and which require editing wincmd.ini directly.

HTH,
Karl

Well, thanks for the tip, it caused half success. I added the two options in the [Packer] section of wincmd.ini with option number 2. After restart unpacking zip files has a "Background" button and it worked fine however unpacking rar files couldn't be sent to background yet.

Hi, nologin.

Funny enough, but the two parameters need to be put into the [Configuration] section, not into the [Packer] section. After having done so, stopping and restarting T.C. might be a good idea.

Karl

I have put the settings into the [Configuration] section and restarted TC, yet the dialog of rar files extracting contains only a Cancel button.
I don't know of how rar extracting differs from zip extracting (as TC displays only a dialog) but as no external rar extractor were set I presume TC uses its built in extracting engine which would mean the option to affect both extraction types. In this case, it doesn't happen.

Hi, nologin.

Your answer suggests two things:
+ you are not using external Winrar, but the unrar.dll provided through T.C.
+ Christian still considers unrar.dll not thread safe, which means the internal unrar must not be sent to a background task (background thread)

As a consequence, the TC internal unzip task can be sent to a background thread, the TC internal unrar task cannot. So the only way of sending unrar into a background thread would be by telling TC to use the genuine Winrar programme and not to use the internal unrar.

Karl

Well, in that case preventing the built-in extractor from being sent to a background thread totally makes sense. If I set the rar path to the external unrar.exe in WinRar folder, can it be forced to run in background?

2nologin

Hello !

…If I set the rar path to the external unrar.exe in WinRar folder, can it be forced to run in background?

• Doing so, you'll get the dialogue of WinRar itself, it has a Background button.
- Maybe is there a setting in WinRar to get this always ?… I use only the button when needed, so I didn't look for…
- Anyway, that might work as you wish using external WinRar and the INI entry

AlwaysPackInBackground=2 (or 3)

 KR
Claude
Clo