I noticed that often, especially if a file has been archived in several formats or several times by different people, when you're done extracting you end up with many layers of folders just to get to one file. There are also different habits of either putting many files in a folder and then archiving that folder vs archiving many files directly, and if you guess wrong while extracting you end up either with an unnecessary folder or with a bunch of files extracted directly into your main folder.
To counter these I'd propose an additional command next to "Extract here" and "Extract to \<Folder>".
This mode would perform a "Extract to <Folder>" but after would parse top down and, as long as it encounters a folder containing a single item (folder or file) will move it's contents up one layer and delete the folder.
Notice that SubSubB remains, this parses only from the top and stops once the test fails, the internal structure remains unchanged.
One thing to consider would be whether the common "MacOS"-Folder should be ignored/deleted, however, I don't know how that is handled on Mac and Linux, so I can't really say whether that would be a good idea.
Last edit: Tobl 2014-06-28
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To be honest, it's kinda weird to not even get comments on the topic. Has it been suggested before? Is it plain stupid? As for effort, I know that in programming there is no such thing as a "quick fix", but if scripting languages are any indication, this should definitely be within an afternoons work. I wouldn't dream of demanding a feature and I understand if your focus is somewhere else, it's really just that it's kind of discouraging if the feedback remains without any reaction.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I noticed that often, especially if a file has been archived in several formats or several times by different people, when you're done extracting you end up with many layers of folders just to get to one file. There are also different habits of either putting many files in a folder and then archiving that folder vs archiving many files directly, and if you guess wrong while extracting you end up either with an unnecessary folder or with a bunch of files extracted directly into your main folder.
To counter these I'd propose an additional command next to "Extract here" and "Extract to \<Folder>".
This mode would perform a "Extract to <Folder>" but after would parse top down and, as long as it encounters a folder containing a single item (folder or file) will move it's contents up one layer and delete the folder.
Example:
7-zip-createdFolder
MainFolder
SubFolder
SubSubA --------------------- SubSubB
FileA1 --- FileA2 ----------- SubSubSubB
------------------------------------ MoreFiles
Collapses to:
SubFolder
SubSubA --------------------- SubSubB
FileA1 --- FileA2 ----------- SubSubSubB
------------------------------------ MoreFiles
Notice that SubSubB remains, this parses only from the top and stops once the test fails, the internal structure remains unchanged.
One thing to consider would be whether the common "MacOS"-Folder should be ignored/deleted, however, I don't know how that is handled on Mac and Linux, so I can't really say whether that would be a good idea.
Last edit: Tobl 2014-06-28
To be honest, it's kinda weird to not even get comments on the topic. Has it been suggested before? Is it plain stupid? As for effort, I know that in programming there is no such thing as a "quick fix", but if scripting languages are any indication, this should definitely be within an afternoons work. I wouldn't dream of demanding a feature and I understand if your focus is somewhere else, it's really just that it's kind of discouraging if the feedback remains without any reaction.