Browse html files inside a rar archive

March 8, 2006 5:12 PM

I'm looking for a method to automatically open the index.html file within an archive and then allow browsing from there, without decompressing.

Something like CDisplay, but for html files. Firefox plugin maybe? What matters is that it is supper easy.

I do not want to enable the XP built in zip support, I only want this to be 'visible' from within a specific application launched for the purpose.

Other tricks for treating archives transparently under tightly defined criteria will also be appreciated.

posted by Chuckles to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I don't understand your question. Something, somewhere, has to be doing the decompression, surely, if you're going to look at the contents of the files? Do you mean 'without decompressing the whole archive' rather than 'without decompressing'? And what exactly do you mean by 'browsing'?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 8:21 PM on March 8, 2006

Well... I don't care what goes on in the background.

One way to do this would be to automatically look in a designated archive every time a referenced file is missing. Once found you could decompress to a temporary location and display it from there. That would be fine, so long as it cleans up when it's done.

I want to be able to point a browser at a rar archive containing the directory tree of a web site and be able to start browsing. Like what CDisplay does with archives full of image files.
posted by Chuckles at 8:37 PM on March 8, 2006

Does it have to be a ZIP or RAR archive? You can create a compressed HTML (CHM) CHM and view it with the Microsoft help viewer. This uses LZx compression, which is roughly equivalent to ZIP or RAR in terms of its efficiency. For all I know you may even be able to open such a file directly in IE...
posted by kindall at 8:43 PM on March 8, 2006

You can also install an extension in Firefox that lets it read MHT files, which are compressed archives of webpages. But this is not a general-purpose archive like zip or rar, though it does use deflate (zip) compression. All this does is uncompress the file into a temp directory before viewing it, though. It certainly doesn't read the file in-place, because RAR/ZIP files weren't designed to be used as filesystems for random access.

If that's not general purpose enough, then you'd have to look for a program that lets you mount the RAR file as a drive letter or path. I don't see any other way to do this, unless you could somehow modify the code of the browser -- and not only would that be very hard, it would only be possible for the few that have source code available.

You could approximate this by creating an .ISO image of the files. Then store this file on a NTFS volume and enable compression of the file. Then mount this .ISO as a drive letter using Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120%, then point the browser at that drive letter. This lets you browse a tree of files inside a single file, and it will be compressed to save space -- although not nearly as efficiently as with a RAR file since you have the ISO overhead and NTFS compression is not all that great.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:11 PM on March 8, 2006

Thanks kindall! That seems like something I should have known...

I just downloaded visual chm, and it looks like it should do the trick - hard to tell for sure with the trial version. A bit more trouble than a firefox plugin and a zip file though :P

Does anyone know of free chm building software?
posted by Chuckles at 9:13 PM on March 8, 2006

Rhomboid: You can also install an extension in Firefox that lets it read MHT files, which are compressed archives of webpages.

Seems like MHT files are one page at a time. Am I missing something? I will definitely use that plugin anyway, it will be useful in many situations.

then you'd have to look for a program that lets you mount the RAR file as a drive letter or path.

That's the idea of the final part of my question... The XP feature that makes all zip's act like part of the filesystem is very irritating.

You could approximate this by creating an .ISO image of the files. Then store this file on a NTFS volume and enable compression of the file.

NTFS compression stinks, but grouping the files is just as important as the final size, so it is an interesting idea..

Anyway, thanks for the help! The problem might be solved, but even if it isn't, I have some search terms to go hunting with.

Recommendations for good (and free, if possible) MHT and CHM tools are still welcome!
posted by Chuckles at 10:29 PM on March 8, 2006

That "ZIP folders" feature of XP is only a Explorer shell extension anyway. It doesn't actually make it part of the filesystem, i.e. that other programs could access. It's a fiction that exists only in Explorer, so it is irrelevant to this problem.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:38 PM on March 8, 2006