SQX format support

[guruman]

Hi,

please add full support for the ‘SQX’ format. It’s a powerfull and free compression format.
http://www.sqx-archiver.org

Comparison to other formats (sorry the page is only available in german):
http://ww.speedproject.de/squeez/tour2b.html

[klumy]

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[jowood]

It seems that the SQX format offers nearly the same compression ratio as 7z and it has some nice features that 7z does not have:

• Internal and external data recovery records
• High speed audio (WAV) compressor
• Real multivolume support
• Multivolume SFX support
• Support for digitally signed archives
• Independent encryption of archive directories
• Archive and file comments
• Updating of solid archives

It can be used free of charge, but it is not open source as 7z. But beside the fact that Ivan Pavlov is the only one who adds new features and fixes bugs that should not be a great disadvantage.

[jowood]

Continued from http://www.powerarchiver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1437

@spwolf:

works the same as every other solid format btw - if you want to update file, whole archive needs to be re-compressed, so basically it is hardly an updating :-). Same goes with extracting files, other files need to be extracted as well.

First of all, it’s not a nice attitude to close every thread if you don’t like it.

It’s correct that the whole archive needs to be re-compressed, but the SQX archiver does it automatically for you. So the user doesn’t need to know if an archive is a solid archive or not.

If you want to update a solid 7z archive you have to extract all files first and then create a new archive with the updated files. For SQX you only have to add the new file(s), SQX archiver extracts the archive to a temp directory and recompress the old files (without the files to be updated) and the new files in one step.

You say that you won’t add another non-open source format. So why you don’t implement this feature for 7z and use the advantages of open source you refer always?

[spwolf]

@jowood:

It seems that the SQX format offers nearly the same compression ratio as 7z and it has some nice features that 7z does not have:

• Internal and external data recovery records
• High speed audio (WAV) compressor
• Real multivolume support
• Multivolume SFX support
• Support for digitally signed archives
• Independent encryption of archive directories
• Archive and file comments
• Updating of solid archives

It can be used free of charge, but it is not open source as 7z. But beside the fact that Ivan Pavlov is the only one who adds new features and fixes bugs that should not be a great disadvantage.

advantage of open source is not that many people can update it, it is that not one person can control it. 5 years from now, if Igor decides that he wont develop 7zip anymore, anyone can still do it. If there is some huge issue that exposes vulnerability of engine, with non-open source, we might not be able to fix it ever, if we dont have the source.

If particular format has no advantages over existing formats, then we will not add it. Why would we? Just to have another format on the check list? That is very confusing for users.

[spwolf]

@jowood:

Continued from http://www.powerarchiver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1437

First of all, it’s not a nice attitude to close every thread if you don’t like it.

It’s correct that the whole archive needs to be re-compressed, but the SQX archiver does it automatically for you. So the user doesn’t need to know if an archive is a solid archive or not.

If you want to update a solid 7z archive you have to extract all files first and then create a new archive with the updated files. For SQX you only have to add the new file(s), SQX archiver extracts the archive to a temp directory and recompress the old files (without the files to be updated) and the new files in one step.

You say that you won’t add another non-open source format. So why you don’t implement this feature for 7z and use the advantages of open source you refer always?

it is an bug thread about bugs, which has been resolved. you can discuss about wishes in this forums. This is why thread has been closed.

we could automatically re-compress 7zip and cab archives, it is not the feature of any particular format but there are few big issues there such as re-compressing anything larger than 10-20 mb might take an huge amount of time and another fact that we cant use old settings such as password as such, which is an security issue, user has to re-enter everything again.

most people would think it is an bug to take an hour to update 10 kb file inside 100 mb archive.

[spwolf]

p.s. there will be an plugin system in PA eventually, so anyone will be able to add their own format (or format they like) to PA :-).

[jowood]

@spwolf:

If particular format has no advantages over existing formats, then we will not add it. Why would we? Just to have another format on the check list? That is very confusing for users.

• Internal and external data recovery records
• High speed audio (WAV) compressor
• Real multivolume support
• Multivolume SFX support
• Support for digitally signed archives
• Archive and file comments
• Updating of solid archives

Hmm, it seems that SQX have many advantages…

@spwolf:

we could automatically re-compress 7zip and cab archives, it is not the feature of any particular format but there are few big issues there such as re-compressing anything larger than 10-20 mb might take an huge amount of time and another fact that we cant use old settings such as password as such, which is an security issue, user has to re-enter everything again.

If you could then you should. How often do you create archives larger than 20 mb for daily use?

@spwolf:

most people would think it is an bug to take an hour to update 10 kb file inside 100 mb archive.

It takes one hour to extract and recompress an 100 mb archive? Are you still working with Pentium 2 computers?

I just tested it with an 5 mb archive. It took 25 seconds.

@spwolf:

p.s. there will be an plugin system in PA eventually, so anyone will be able to add their own format (or format they like) to PA :-).

Nice to read, but when? PA 2008 or earlier?

[spwolf]

if you are using maximum compression, yes it takes a long time. Try at ultra setting for 100 MB file. Now imagine if you will want to use this to update 10 kb text file.

If you are compressing small files, then using some other format like zip is much smarter choice anyway. It is faster, and about billion of computers can extract it. You dont have to download some specific utility in order to read them.

[spwolf]

@jowood:

Nice to read, but when? PA 2008 or earlier?

PA 2008 isnt that far away, but i was hoping sooner. So much work though and troubleshooting. At the same time, you will be able to add any format you wish, which will clear up the wishlist queue :p

[jowood]

@spwolf:

If you are compressing small files, then using some other format like zip is much smarter choice anyway. It is faster, and about billion of computers can extract it. You dont have to download some specific utility in order to read them.

Why it is a smarter choice? Especially for compressing many files solid archives are a big plus. I want to use solid archives and I want to update these archives. A smarter program would make it possible.

[TBGBe]

@jowood:

Why it is a smarter choice? Especially for compressing many files solid archives are a big plus. I want to use solid archives and I want to update these archives. A smarter program would make it possible.

Be careful, you wouldn’t want to “stray off topic” again, updating solid archives IS possible in SQX (the topic of this thread)
@jowood:

You say that you won’t add another non-open source format. So why you don’t implement this feature for 7z and use the advantages of open source you refer always?

Updating solid 7z files has been in wishlist for some time, see
http://www.powerarchiver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=598

[spwolf]

@jowood:

Why it is a smarter choice? Especially for compressing many files solid archives are a big plus. I want to use solid archives and I want to update these archives. A smarter program would make it possible.

you are right, we just did not want to deal with problems of adding it before. Of course, few nicer words would work even better :-).

[Shivan]

I used a program called Squeez which supports the SQX format.

Compression takes longer than 7-ZIP!
7-ZIP still has the better compression in most of my tests!
When SQX is smaller, the difference is only about 2%.
Ultra compression settings were used.

I used a 3 GHz PC, so if something takes long, it’s a problem!

Frankly, 7-ZIP is still the boss!