ZDoom

Found out why I could never get 7zip to work when Randy mentioned dragndrop only supports a few extensions.

.7z files work fine when I run them through ZDL.

What the hell is a PK7?

7z file with a .pk? extension. There's no real reason to call it pk7, since zips are not especially associated with the number 3 (should have been pkz then I guess), but well. Some people thought a distinction should be made between a zipped pk3 and a 7zipped pk3, and the easiest way was to change the number.

As for why it works fine through ZDL, it's because the frontend automatically uses the -file parameter; whereas drag-n-drop doesn't.

zdoom -file whatever.7z works.
zdoom whatever.7z doesn't.

I got pk7 from the wiki. We got a decade or 3 until id tech 7 shows up so we can safely claim it.

I still think it should have been PKZ.

Aside from anything else, Zdoom PK3s are not the same as idtech ones because of the different internal directory structure.

What can you do? Everybody uses that extension...

ZDoom's PK3's? Everybody?

Make that most.

Gez wrote:zips are not especially associated with the number 3

Sure they are. Take a look at the first three bytes of a zip file. It should read "P K 0x03".

Spoiler: Here I did it for you

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Can't really do that for a 7z archive since the header starts with "7z". So the only logical "don't extract this" extensions I can think of are PK7 or SZ.

Maybe the community should agree on a "don't extract this" extension, and make it a standard.

Enjay's PKZ sounds nice!

Whatever you choose can you make it quick. I asked for PK7 support in WADSEEKER/GetWad so Skulltag can use it.

Nash: Anything but .zip is fine, really. I'm adamant on advocating the .pk3 extension just because it's the only other alternative. The thing is, who's going to adopt the standard? Shall we have another meeting of the UDMF council?

.PKZ sounds fine to me, though I'd find it really odd if some use it and others don't. But that's life, I suppose.

DaMan wrote:Whatever you choose can you make it quick.

This is a great way to ensure that a change takes longer to occur.

Maybe .zwad or .wadz. Or a name that is based on compress(ed) rather than zip(ped) like .cwad.

Of course, as a Linux user, I'm confident that this whole file extension thing is just a phase that will, in time, pass. I mean, they're really more of a suggestion to the user (pesky users), after all. This whole discussion in a way is an admission that file extensions are just the arbitrary series of characters people sometimes put at the end of a filename. So why not just discard them as the meaningless fodder they are? Why not treat all filenames as equals? I say we throw off the chains of oppression by extensions and- er...

More on topic: I agree that the .7z extensions should probably be acknowledged by ZDoom. But not .pk7 because it's silly and non-standard.

DavidPH wrote:Or a name that is based on compress(ed) rather than zip(ped) like .cwad.

They're not compressed wads. Well, sure, they can be, but the recommended organization is entirely different, so pkwhatever, for "PacKage", is just fine.

DavidPH wrote:Of course, as a Linux user, I'm confident that this whole file extension thing is just a phase that will, in time, pass. I mean, they're really more of a suggestion to the user (pesky users), after all. This whole discussion in a way is an admission that file extensions are just the arbitrary series of characters people sometimes put at the end of a filename. So why not just discard them as the meaningless fodder they are? Why not treat all filenames as equals? I say we throw off the chains of oppression by extensions and- er...

I can't agree with that because they are very handy. Sure, you could have the operating system instead scan every file of every folder and apply recognition algorithms to identify their type; but it's eleventy jillionteen-five times more fasterer to rely on the extension. And it allows to have files of similar format with a different extension, that will be treated differently as you want. For example, ZDoom's savegames are actually PNG files.

DavidPH wrote:Maybe .zwad or .wadz.

look i has wadz an u dont!!1 lulz

Aside from Gez being right, (they aren't just compressed wads,) it would be better as something like WAZ. Some Win32 users do still use 8.3, (dunno why, but it is still an option in XP,) and many extensions have a 3-length variation, like HTM for HTML. (The pre-extension part is already handled by the ~1, etc. scheme.)

Nash wrote:Enjay's PKZ sounds nice!

I've already been using it.