feature request -- zip archives support

Hello.

I'm a pretty new user of the gqview, and I must say I find it the most
comfortable image viewer for linux.

A while back, I was using ACDSee 3.* under Windows, and I got very used to
it. I couldn't really switch to Linux painlessly, because I'm vieweing
large numbers of pictures very often, and I havent found a viewer that
would suit my needs. Until I found gqview.

The preload feature is one I missed the most in all other image viewers.

But there's one more feature I miss.

Since lots of small files usually takes up more space, I'm storing all my
pictures compressed in zip files (usually with compression set to 0), to
group them.  I save them to CD's this way too -- so switching to a
different format would be a pain.  Another good thing about storing them
this way is that you can view the archives with thumbnails -- when
compression is 0, the first image in the archive is read as thumbnail by
most picture viewers.

It would be really great if the gqview supported reading of the zip files
-- ie. treating them as directories.  I know, I can emulate this kind of
behavior using various scripts and autofs, the way Midnight Commander does
it, but this makes it imposiible to use the viewer's file chooser and all
of it's neat features, and takes long to `enter' the zip file, as it's
being uncompressed to a temporary directory.

With libraries such as zziplib or zipio++lib it's possible to access files
inside zip archives `on the fly', without need of decompressing the whole
archive.

I want to try to add such a feature to gqview by myself, but the chances
of success are rather slim -- I'm no expert programmer, have no knowledge
of gtk, and I don't know the sources very well -- plus I'm short on time
to spare for this effort.

So I'd be glad if such a feature was added to the TODO list, or at least
discussed.

I suppose it only takes a few changes to add it using appropriate library.

Forgive me if this was discussed and rejected earlier.

Kind regards
-- 
  Radomir          @**@_  Bee!     Create your own computer role playing
`The Sheep'        ('') 3          game using the great H-World engine!
Dopieralski   .vvVvVVVVVVvVVvv.v.  http://h-world.simugraph.com/


-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by: InterSystems CACHE
FREE OODBMS DOWNLOAD - A multidimensional database that combines
robust object and relational technologies, making it a perfect match
for Java, C++,COM, XML, ODBC and JDBC. www.intersystems.com/match8