Chapter 4 Extracting

4.1 Scope

The scope is not chosen in a dialog — it follows the file table selection:

• Entries checked: only the selected files and folders are extracted (a checked folder = its whole subtree).
• Nothing checked: everything is extracted.

The toolbar “Extract Selected” and “Extract All” buttons, the “Actions → Extract to…” menu item (Ctrl+E), and the context-menu “Extract Selected / Extract All” all open the same extract dialog.

4.2 Extract dialog

The dialog has just two inputs:

• Extract to: the destination directory, pre-filled with a smart suggestion — the last used directory (remembered). Click the 📁 button to change it with the system directory chooser.
• Password: appears when the archive contains encrypted entries; enter it once (a wrong password triggers the retry dialog during extraction — no need to start over).

Click “Extract” to start the background extraction; the progress dialog shows the current file name and progress. “Cancel” aborts.

4.3 Multi-archive queue

Select several archives in the file manager and right-click “Extract with WxArc”: WxArc extracts them one by one into the chosen directory. The password is asked once and reused for the same password; a summary of successes/failures is shown at the end. Clicking “Cancel” in the extract dialog clears the whole queue.

4.4 Smart extraction

The worst part of extracting is dozens of files scattered everywhere. WxArc decides automatically:

• Archive contains one top-level folder → extract directly into the destination.
• Multiple top-level entries → create a subfolder named after the archive inside the destination.

4.5 File conflicts

When a file with the same name already exists in the destination, the “Confirm Replace” dialog appears: it shows the existing file and offers “Yes / No / Yes to All / No to All / Cancel”.

4.6 Permission problems and admin extraction

When the destination is not writable, the failure list offers “Extract as Admin”: after system authorization (pkexec on Linux, UAC on Windows) the extraction retries with administrator privileges. A cancelled or timed-out authorization can be retried again.

4.7 Failure list

If any entries fail, the “Failures” dialog lists each file with status and reason (I/O error, unsupported or corrupted, insufficient disk space, …) and the total failure count.

4.8 Security

• Zip Slip protection: malicious entries (like ../../etc/passwd or drive-letter absolute paths) are sanitized uniformly — no entry can escape the destination directory.
• Symbolic links: relative-target symlinks in tar-family archives are recreated as-is; absolute targets and hard links are skipped.