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I sometimes download archive files containing pictures. I just want to look at the picture and don't want to keep them, so there is no need for me to extract the files from the archive.

When I open the zip file with Ark, I can preview the pictures (within Ark). But to get to the next one, the preview must be closed and you have to click on the next picture.

It would be better to use Gwenview, which is designed to browse pictures. When opening an archive, Ark would extract it in a temporary folder, and opening a picture would launch Gwenview.

Another solution would be to implement "next" and "previous" buttons in Ark's preview, but rotation and zoom are also nice to have when you are viewing images and there is no point in turning Ark's preview into a Gwenview fork...

Anyway there should be a way to implement this. This is one of the few features I miss from my previous desktop environment.

Edit:

As suggested in the comments by Vortex375 and dflemstr, this behaviour is possible to achieve using Dolphin. I think Dolphin is more user-friendly than Ark.

By default, Dolphin should be added to the list of programs that appears when you right-click on an archive and select "Open with...".

There isn't really any need to enchance Ark.

You can access the contents of the archive directly in gwenview (it uses kio so it can transparently access contents of archives, web resources, ...).

Instead of opening the archive in ark, just double-click it in dolphin to view the contents, then open any of the pictures with gwenview.
This allows you to browse through pictures in archives, in the correct order, without having to extract them.

Vortex375 wrote:Instead of opening the archive in ark, just double-click it in dolphin to view the contents, then open any of the pictures with gwenview.

When I double-click on it in Dolphin, it opens Ark ! On openSUSE 11.3, Ark is associated with every archive file. Usually, when I download the archive from the Internet, I open it directly from Firefox's download manager. And by default, it is running Ark.

If I right-click on the archive file in Dolphin, and select "Open with...", then Dolphin, a new empty Dolphin window opens and then Ark opens the file.

But it is working in Konqueror... The problem may come from openSUSE... I'm running KDE 4.5 RC3 on openSUSE 11.3.

You can also right-click and open the archive directly with gwenview.

AGuiFr wrote:
When I double-click on it in Dolphin, it opens Ark !

In Dolphin, go to "Settings", "Configure Dolphin", "Navigation", and check "Open archives as folder". Problem solved.

dflemstr wrote:

AGuiFr wrote:
When I double-click on it in Dolphin, it opens Ark !

In Dolphin, go to "Settings", "Configure Dolphin", "Navigation", and check "Open archives as folder". Problem solved.

Ok thanks. So I think the idea as it is now is useless. However I think this should be the default configuration of Dolphin, and Dolphin should be the default software for opening archives. Or at least it should be in the list when you right-click on an archive and select "Open with..."

Unfortunately there are not kio slaves for all archive formats supported by ark. I think that would be the best solution, but there is already an idea about that I think.