Product ReviewsUtilities
Aladdin's StuffIt Expander and DropStuff file compression utilities are almost as much a fixture on the Macintosh desktop as the Finder itself, but its more powerful and versatile sibling, StuffIt Deluxe, is a rarer beast. Perhaps that's not surprising given that Deluxe's main selling point - the ability to manipulate the contents of archived files - is beyond most users' needs. But for those who regularly deal with archives, Deluxe has become an indispensable tool. This latest version of Deluxe isn't the same ground-up rewrite of the program as its predecessor, but there are important new features. The most significant is the arrival for Mac OS X users of Archive via Rename (AVR), which was previously a Classic-only feature. AVR lets you directly compress or unstuff files by changing their file extension in the Finder. AVR is a definite time-saver, but there are enough trade-offs to concern the cautious. First, with the exception of the standard Mac OS X warning whenever you attempt to change a file extension in the Finder, the uncompressed file overwrites the original data rather than creating a copy. AVR has also been implemented as a kernel extension, which is a heavy-handed approach to the addition of a single feature, given that badly written kernel extensions can compromise a Mac's stability. It's a credit to the developers that we encountered no problems during testing, but we'd rather users were forewarned. Back it up Deluxe 8's second new feature is Archive Assistant, an application that schedules archived backups to an external volume including CD or DVD, iDisk or FTP location. As backups are compressed on the fly, Archive Assistant is an excellent utility for regular offline backups, but it isn't
Early testers of Deluxe 8 also noticed a big usability issue: Mac OS X applications compressed in StuffIt (.sit) format wouldn't launch when expanded. This behaviour occurred as a result of a change in the way that StuffIt files dealt with Unix file permissions. The version 8.0.1 update we tested has now reversed the behaviour so that applications launch as expected, but as there were genuine reasons for the change, it would have been useful to have included a Preferences option so this behaviour could be toggled. There are a number of ways of uncompressing and archiving files: as well as the standard Deluxe window where you can manage archived files and folders, you can also use contextual or menu bar entries in the Finder. Unix aficionados can even use a sparsely documented command line version from the Terminal application and there's a feature allowing you to automate the backup process. For most tasks, however, the drag-and-drop functionality of updated versions of Expander or DropStuff will be used most often. When you launch DropStuff you can adjust its default behaviour to compress in either the efficient StuffItX format, or the more widely-used StuffIt. But its neatest new trick is only apparent if you hold down the Control and Option keys as you drag a folder onto the icon: a dialog box appears allowing you to filter the added files according to their name, date, size or file extension. Only those matching will be compressed. Deluxe now integrates with Word and Illustrator and Photoshop via a set of plug-ins that add the ability to compress and email active documents from within Word's File and Photoshop's Automate menu. Functionally, aside from support for another two PC-based file formats, .cab and .yenc, the biggest improvement is better compression speed. But we were disappointed to see that Deluxe still annexes the processor when compressing files. StuffIt Deluxe 8.0.1 offers useful features at a competitive price, but with a speedy native compression tool built into Mac OS X 10.3, casual users will find more cost-effective methods of compressing and opening files. By Tom Gorham |
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