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When I right click an archive in Kubuntu 13.10 and select the extract option, not much happens. The taskbar launcher twirls around for a few seconds but nothing actually extracts. I suspect something is blowing up but there's no terminal output to try and work out what's going on.

I'd like to run the command that KDE is running manually so I can see what's wrong, and hopefully fix it. But where are the right-click options stored? Where can I find the command that KDE's trying to run?

Oli
  • 299,380

2 Answers2

8

Service Menus

The 'Extract Archive Here' is a KDE Service Menu /1/

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The system KDE service menu desktop files are at : /usr/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus/

The ark_servicemenu.desktop /2/ has the 'Extract Archive Here' option. It is executing command:

ark --batch --autodestination %F

The %F /3/ is:

A list of files. Use for apps that can open several local files at once. Each file is passed as a separate argument to the executable program.

More of the Ark options can be get from with man:

man ark

ARK(1)                                            KDE User's Manual                                            ARK(1)

NAME
       ark - KDE archiving tool

SYNOPSIS
       ark [-b] [-a] [-e] [-c] [-f suffix] [-p] [-t file] [-d] [-o directory] [KDE Generic Options]
           [Qt(TM) Generic Options]

DESCRIPTION
       Ark is a program for managing various compressed file formats within KDE. Archives can be viewed, extracted,
       created and modified with Ark. The program can handle various formats such as tar, gzip, bzip2, zip, rar (when
       the appropriate libraries or command-line programs are installed).

OPERATION MODES
       Ark can be used either as a stand-alone GUI program as well as a command-line program in order to perform some
       specific tasks.

       If invoked without the -b (--batch) or -c (--add) options, Ark is started as a normal GUI program.

       When the -b (--batch) option is used, Ark can be used to extract the contents of one or more files directly
       from the command-line, without launching its GUI.

       When the -c (--add) option is used, Ark prompts for files that should be added to a new archive or to an
       existing archive.

OPTIONS
...
   Options for batch extraction
       -b, --batch
           Use the batch interface instead of the usual dialog. This option is implied if more than one url is
           specified.

       -e, --autodestination
           The destination argument will be set to the path of the first file supplied.

Links

  1. http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Creating_Konqueror_Service_Menus
  2. http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/
  3. http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s06.html
user26687
  • 15,174
0

Extract Archive Here command will run Ark and extract the contents.

Ark is a program for managing various archive formats within the KDE environment.

Archives can be viewed, extracted, created and modified from within Ark. The program can handle various formats such as tar, gzip, bzip2, zip, rar and lha (if appropriate command-line programs are installed). Ark can work closely with Konqueror in the KDE environment to handle archives, if you install the Konqueror Integration plugin available in the kdeaddons package.KDE Utils

Mitch
  • 109,787