PeaZip free archiver project sources

https://peazip.github.io/

(peazip sources)/dev subdirectory contains sources for compiling and building PeaZip's own binaries

(peazip sources)/res contain resources needed to run PeaZip and deploy it as portable or installable application

QUICK START-UP GUIDE TO BUILD A PEAZIP PACKAGE

This section provides a quick step-by-step to-do list for building PeaZip from source package, anyway it is recommended to also read the following DETAILED GUIDE section in order to understand in details the process of building and deploying a custom PeaZip package, possibly targeting new Operating Systems, CPU architectures, and package management systems.

1) INSTALL LAZARUS IDE

Install Lazarus IDE, available from https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

In case of issues with installation (step 1) or use (step 2) of Lazarus, its community can be reached through the forum of the aforementioned domain and is usually very helpful and friendly.

2) COMPILE AND BUILD

Add additional packages to vanilla Lazarus:

lazbuild --add-package (peazip sources)/dev/metadarkstyle/metadarkstyle.lpk

(only needed to build dragdropfilesdll.dll for Windows systems)

lazbuild --add-package (peazip sources)\dev\dragdropfilesdll\DragDropLazarus.lpk

Run:

lazbuild (peazip sources)/dev/project_peach.lpi

lazbuild (peazip sources)/dev/project_pea.lpi

(only needed to build dragdropfilesdll.dll for Windows systems)

lazbuild (peazip sources)\dev\dragdropfilesdll\dragdropfilesdll.lpi

Please note:

Replace lazbuild with full qualified path to lazbuild binary if needed; usually on windows it is C:\lazarus\lazbuild.exe

Replace (peazip sources) with fill qualified path to PeaZip source's directory.

LINUX

On Linux systems Lazarus will currently build for GTK2 widget set by default:--widgetset= option allows to target different widget sets (Qt5, Qt6, GTK3...), assuming correct Pascal bindings are installed - please refer to Lazarus documentation for each specific widget-set.

In example, lazbuild --widgetset=qt5 project_peach.lpi will compile peazip binary for Qt5 libraries, if available to Lazarus IDE.

In alternative open the aforementioned .lpi files in Lazarus and follow suggestions of the DETAILED GUIDE section.

MACOS

Binaries produced with Lazarus 3.2 and following can trigger an non-existent unspecified error when launched from Automator scripts.

3) MOVE THE BINARIES

Place pea and peazip binaries (and dragdropfilesdll.dll on Windows systems) in (peazip sources) root.

You will no longer need (peazip sources)/dev directory afterwards.

4) ADD THIRD PARTY BINARIES

(peazip sources)/res/bin directory will contain third party binaries (e.g. 7z, brotli, zpaq, zstandard...)

Third party binaries are NOT provided with PeaZip source package because they are platform specific: you need to download the appropriate binary for the target OS and CPU architecture, and save them in the subdirectories of the bin folder - e.g. 7z in (peazip sources)/res/bin/7z subdirectory.

(peazip sources)/res/share directory already contains non-binary, non-platform-dependent resources needed by PeaZip, as graphic, texts, help file, and sample scripts.

This directory already contains all the needed files.

5) PEAZIP PORTABLE IS READY

You have now a working PeaZip Portable package, which saves the app's configuration in (peazip sources)/res/conf directory: you can simply compress the root folder of the app and move the application and its configuration altogether where you need it.

6) CREATE AN INSTALLABLE PEAZIP PACKAGE (OPTIONAL)

To transform the Portable package in a non-portable one, simply delete (peazip sources)/res/portable file (which is plainly an empty file): in this way PeaZip will save its configuration to the appropriate user-specific location for the host system (e.g. in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME for most *x-like systems).

To create an installer for PeaZip you will then simply need to put the root folder of the app into the package, and instruct the installer to copy it to the appropriate location for the target system (e.g. in /usr/lib on most Linux distributions).

If the target system needs to enforce stringent Filesystem Hierarchy Standard rules, you can replace resources in the package with links, saving the actual resources in the appropriate branch of the filesystem - e.g. non-binary resources collected in (peazip sources)/res/share directory can be saved in /usr/share, or even further distinction can be made between subdirectories containing application texts and graphic.

To integrate the app in the target system (or for using PeaZip from scripts) please refer to examples in (peazip sources)/res/share/batch directory.

DETAILED GUIDE:

CONTENT

(peazip sources)/dev subdirectory contains sources of the project

(peazip sources)/dev/project_pea.lpi: PEA, the actual engine for PEA file format support

(peazip sources)/dev/project_peach.lpi: originally PEACH, PEAlaunCHer, that compiles to the main executable PeaZip and act as GUI frontend for PEA, 7z and other utilities

(peazip sources)/dev/project_demo_lib.lpi: an OPTIONAL demo application using PEA sources as a library, this is only meant as example and it is not required by PeaZip

(peazip sources)/dev/metadarkstyle subdirectory contains zamtmn metadarkstyle Lazarus package which adds support to W10+ dark mode.

The package is unused on non-Windows platforms, but in any case Lazarus IDE needs that the package is either manually added to the project, or removed from project dependencies, both for peazip and pea.

To add the package to the project (which is recommended on Windows platform) you can use the command line mentioned at point 2) of the quick guide section, or (from the IDE) main menu > Package > Add package file (.lpk), click "Use" dropdown and select "Add to project".

To remove the package dependency open the project in the IDE, which will notify the missing dependency, the package dependency can be removed from main menu > Project > Project Inspector, select "MetaDarkStyle" and click the "Remove" button; as alternative attemptiong to build the project will result in an error message showing Project Inspector which can be used to remove the package dependency as explained.

This extra step is due to Lazarus architecture in which packages belongs to the IDE rather than to the specific project, that is meant to make easiser to reuse packages in multiple projects.

(peazip sources)/res subdirectory contains resources to run PeaZip application

Windows-only:

(peazip sources)\dev\dragdropfilesdll subdirectory contains sources to build dragdropfilesdll.dll, which provides application-to-system files drag&drop functions under Windows systems

It requires installation of optional Lazarus package DragDropLazarus5.2 (or newer) to be compiled, which is based on work of Angus Johnson & Anders Melander (on Delphi), and Michael Köcher / six (on Lazarus); the package is available in Lazarus Online Package Manager or from https://packages.lazarus-ide.org/DragDrop.zip

As alternative to installation in the Lazarus IDE, the package can be simply added to the project (from the IDE) main menu > Package > Add package file (.lpk), click "Use" dropdown and select "Add to project".

IMPORTANT: dragdropfilesdll.dll SHA256 is checked by PeaZip for Windows on startup in procedure internaldllcheck, in order to assure the dll matches with a known whitelisted hash value to prevent DLL Hijacking attacks.

If dragdropfilesdll.dll SHA256 hash does not match with the value hardcoded in procedure internaldllcheck, PeaZip will halt displaying an error message about the dll.

If you plan to recompile or modify dragdropfilesdll.dll you will need to modify the reference hash value in procedure internaldllcheck to match the hash value of the new dll file.

(peazip sources)\dev\installer subdirectory contains InnoSetup script files creating Windows installers with file associations and menu / SendTo integration for PeaZip; it requires InnoSetup.

.res files in (peazip sources)/dev are compiled with windres (see windres_pea.bat and windres_peazip.bat as examples) into .rc files, which are used on Windows platform to give to the application's executables manifest and binaries information (author, version etc)

COMPILE AND BUILD

MANUAL

Open .lpi project files in Lazarus and use main menu Run > Build all to compile and build the binaries:

project_peach.lpi builds peazip, the main app executable, file and archive manager

project_pea.lpi builds pea, which provides pea format support, file management tools, encryption and hashing routines

On Windows systems you will also need to compile (peazip sources)/dev/dragdropfilesdll/dragdropfilesdll.lpi and copy dragdropfilesdll.dll in the same directory of peazip.exe

From Lazaus main menu Project > Project options > "Configuration and target" you can set diffetent target OS (Linux, Darwin/macOS, Windows...), widget set (GTK, Qt, win32, cocoa...), and CPU architectures (x86, x86_64, AARCH64...).

AUTO

See step 2) of the START-UP GUIDE section

ASSEMBLE PACKAGES

NAMING

PeaZip project packages follows this naming convention: name-version.architecture

DEB packages are an exception to this rule, following Debian naming convention: name_version_architecture

"name" states the pakage (i.e. PeaZip, PeaZip Portable, sources...)

"version" field starts with version number x.y.z, then states target OS (LINUX, WINDOWS, WIN64); on Linux systems is then declared the target widgetset (i.e. GKT2, Qt5), and finally the release number (usually -1).

"architecture" on Linux declare target architecture (on Debian amd64 is used in place of x86_64) and is omitted on Windows.

PORTABLE PACKAGES

PeaZip Portable should be built compressing a directory here referred as (peazip), containing:

pea and peazip binaries compiled for the target system (and dragdropfilesdll.dll on Windows)

(peazip)/res directory which contains resources divided by type

(peazip)/res/portable empty file marking the package as portable

(peazip)/res/bin directory containing architecture dependent binaries, that should be compiled by respective third party sources for the target system: refer to THIRD PARTIES section below, or refer to the content of an existing package

(peazip)/res/share directory containing non-architecture dependent data such as texts, sample scripts, media, documentation: refer to DETAILS ABOUT RES/SHARE section for further information

(peazip)/res/conf directory containing configuration files, and user-created custom scripts, compression settings, archive layouts

For details on content of each res subpath plesase refer to (peazip sources)/res, and possibly to an existing up to date Portable package.

INSTALLERS

Installer packages can be built starting from portable package

1) Removing (peazip)/res/portable file, in this way the application will write configuration file to appropriate user specific directory for the known systems, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/peazip or $HOME/.config/peazip for non_Windows systems following Open Deskptop standard.

2) Taking care to place resources in proper paths depending on the filesystem standards of the target system, e.g. (peazip)/res/bin and (peazip)/res/share should be replaced to links to pointing to (proper path)/peazip directory created in proper branches of the filesystem for the type of resources.

In example, in current Linux packages, (peazip) is written to /usr/lib/peazip, with (peazip)/res/bin being /usr/lib/peazip/res/bin directory, and (peazip)/res/share being a link to /usr/share/peazip directory.

Another possible - and recommended - use of links is to make PeaZip use system's binaries, especially in case of common ones like 7z, in order to avoid having on the system a second copy of the binary (which requires to be updated separately), e.g. replacing (peazip)/res/bin/7z/7z with a link pointing to /usr/bin/7z.

This is not possible to do in generic installers which cannot cast assumptions on the target system, but is feasible and recommended for distribution / version specific packages.

The same mechanism based on links can be used, on systems not supporting Open Desktop standards, also to redirect configuraton folder, letting (peazip)/res/portable file, which tells the application to write configuration to (peazip)/res/conf which will be, in this case, replaced by a link.

3) On Windows packages, place "Configure peazip.exe" compiled from InnoSetup script peazip-setup_script_WIN*-configure.iss in (peazip)/res/bin directory

peazip-x.y.z.pack.zip package provides examples of the directory structures used to create DEB and RPM packages for the current release, in order to help developers in assembling packages for distribution with different package managers.

It is not needed to compile sources, it is only meant as additional help to assemble packages.

DETAILS ABOUT RES/SHARE

(peazip)/res/share directory, containing non-architecture dependent resources, can be used "as is" on all systems and types of packages.

If desired, system dependent resources can be omitted to reduce the size of the package, i.e. in non-Windows packages it can be safely removed sample .bat and .reg files, being of no use.

This directory should contain (or link to) peazip_help.pdf in its root in order to provide offline help to users.

(peazip)/res/share/batch subfolder contains sample scripts to use PeaZip from command line scripts, .desktop files, SendTo examples for Windows, macOS .workflow service menus, and freedesktop_integration subpath which contains files for integration in desktop environments compliant with freedesktop standards (i.e. Gnome, KDE, and other common Linux DE)

(peazip)/res/share/copying contains copying.txt (the license file for PeaZip project sources, released under LGPLv3) and third-parties directory containing third party licenses.

(peazip)/res/share/icons contains .ico and .png icons (more .png icons are available in batch/freedesktop_integration directory)

(peazip)/res/share/lang path contains translations of application's text, most of which are contributed by third parties translators

(peazip)/res/share/lang-wincontext path (the sole res directory intended only for Windows systems) contains .reg files to localize app's context menus in Windows

(peazip)/res/share/presets contains preset files for PeaZip defining custom compression settings. Those files are editable, but user-defined custom compression settings should be saved in configuration directory consistently with PeaZip's behavior

(peazip)/res/share/readme files contains a minimal system-dependent explanation about the application, for Windows and Linux users

(peazip)/res/share/themes path contains themes for PeaZip project; themes are .7z files (with .theme suffix before .7z extension) containing graphic resources and the theme file, an UTF-8 with BOM file containing theming options

THIRD PARTIES

The units of crypto and math utilities library used in PeaZip are derived from Wolfgang Ehrhardt's crypto library (originally aes_2017-11-17.zip, crc_hash_2018-01-01.zip, fca_2017-11-17.zip, serpent_2017-11-17.zip, tf_2017-11-17.zip, and util_2018-11-27.zip libraries), released under the Zlib license by Wolfgang Ehrhardt.

Libraries are kept up to date, in example were patched to allow build on aarch64 architecture.

7z (LGPL), p7zip (LGPL), 7-Zip-zstd codecs (LGPL), Brotli (MIT License), Zstandard (Dual license BSD / GPLv2), ARC (GPL), ZPAQ/LPAQ/PAQ8* (GPL), QUAD (LGPL) / BALZ (public domain) / BCM (Apache v2), strip and UPX (GPL) binaries are needed to support mainstream file formats, they are not included in source package (but are included in the program's precompiled packages) and are intellectual property of respective Authors.

Up to date links to aforementioned projects are:

https://www.7-zip.org/download.html 7-Zip's 7z (Windows, Linux, and macOS), should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/7z

http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/ vanilla p7zip, can be placed as alternative to 7z in (peazip)/res/bin/7z

https://github.com/szcnick/p7zip p7zip fork with extra algorithms, can be placed as alternative in (peazip)/res/bin/7z

https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd codecs for 7Z (Windows only), should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/7z/Codecs

http://freearc.sourceforge.net/ FreeArc, should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/arc

https://github.com/google/brotli Brotli, should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/brotli

http://mattmahoney.net/dc/ *PAQ, should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/lpaq, /paq, and /zpaq

https://github.com/encode84/bcm / http://www.encode.su/ / http://sourceforge.net/projects/bcm/ Ilia Muraviev's QUAD/BALZ/BCM, should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/quad

https://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/ strip (needed only on Windows), should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/upx

https://upx.github.io/ UPX, should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/upx

http://facebook.github.io/zstd/ Zstandard, should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/zstd

PeaZip can also support other binaries, which MUST not be included in base packages due closed source nature

WinAce UnACE (royalty free) can be supported as back-end binary if placed in (peazip)/res/bin/unace, but must not be included in packages because non-free license.

RarLab UnRar (royalty free) can be supported as back-end binary if placed in (peazip)/res/bin/unrar, but must not be included in packages because non-free license.

RarLab Rar.exe (shareware) can be supported as back-end binary if installed on the same system (PeaZip can auto-configure itself to use it to create RAR archives), but must not included in packages because it is non-free software AND has non royalty free license.

From main menu, Options > Settings, Advanced tab it is possible to set PeaZip to NOT use non-free software or formats.

This behavior can be hardcoded setting HLIBRE_DIR constant in peazip (project_peach.lpi) at compile time:

0 not hardcoded, read from configuration;

1 hardcoded to allow only using known Free Software components

2 hardcoded to allow only using known Free Software components and known open archive formats (not encumbered by patents for read nor write)

In PeaZip GUI interface are used some icons inspired by Tango Desktop Project, Crystal/Crystal Clear, and NuoveXT, which are originally released under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike and LGPL licenses; more icons are available in /res/share subpaths.