EasyZip

New Post: Errors after adding 360 solution to pc project with easyzip...

cdxrd — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:17:00 GMT

Alright, I got my project up and running, added EasyZip (which was really easy! Wonderful util!!) and then I went to create a 360 version. The windows version compiles fine.. no troubles anywhere. Well, I click project, Create copy for 360. It adds the solution.

Right off the bat, I see these two warnings:

Warning 1 The referenced component 'System.Data' could not be found.
Warning 2 The referenced component 'EasyZip' could not be found.

Then upon trying to build it, I get this consistently:

Error 3 The type or namespace name 'EasyZip' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

I have even gone back into easyzip, selected the 360 project and tried to update it, but no luck.. any ideas?

Also get this:

Warning 8 Could not resolve this reference. Could not locate the assembly "EasyZip". Check to make sure the assembly exists on disk. If this reference is required by your code, you may get compilation errors.

New Post: Encryption? + (unrelated) custom pipeline

Kiwillian — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:13:59 GMT

Also, do you use new()/.Dispose a lot?

I've not had a chance to nosey through the source but doing this a lot on the 360 will kill it.

e.g. Load a big ass PNG, if you malloc/new compressed and uncompressed sizes each time (say 4mb uncompressed xnb) the thing will die in no time.

New Post: Encryption? + (unrelated) custom pipeline

Kiwillian — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:34:33 GMT

Have you given any thought to allowing for some sort of encryption? This would be mostly to protect people who license content and don't want people stealing it in violation of the licensing agreement.

I see the newer versions of the Zip library you use allow for passwords, which is better than nothing. Perhaps obfuscate the header as well, maybe, I dunno. Even just some simple encryption on the compressed file contents would be good. Anything that helps prevent a plaintext attack.

(unrelated question)

Also, does this library work with custom content pipeline components? For example, the InstancedModel XNA sample, or an animation component or sound library? (the newer Zip lib let's you store files uncompressed, good for audio and security if you encrypt, i.e. licensed music)

Cheers!

Created Issue: Flag to exclude files from zip

SeC — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:11:27 GMT

It would be nice to have ability to exclude some files from being but into zip. For example I have few textures using DXT, after compression they are bigger size, so I have to manualy add XNB files to content.

Updated Wiki: Home

SimReality — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:59:40 GMT

EasyZip was created and is maintained by Nick Gravelyn (http://nick.gravelyn.com/). EasyZip (as of version 1.2) is now released as open source under the MIT license. Releases will continue to be just the MSI, but the full source is available in the Source Code area.

EasyZip is an incredibly easy way to automatically take your built XNA Game Studio content, compress it into a ZIP archive file, and read your content back out without having to unzip the whole thing! EasyZip integrates seamlessly into the build experience so you never have to update any list of items for the zip file or manage console commands. Simply run your project through the updater and you are ready to start programming with the EasyZip library.

Or if you choose not to automatically build your content into ZIP files, the ZipContentManager is able to read any Windows-created ZIP file. So feel free to manually ZIP up your XNB files into one or more ZIP files and then read the data right out using the ZipContentManager.

Without compressing your content, games can easily become huge downloads solely on content size. PNG image files can increase in size from 100-200kb for your source PNG file into a 1-1.5MB XNB file. With EasyZip you can place all these XNB files into a ZIP file which can reduce them in size by 50-80%. This lets you use more content for your games without worrying about file sizes.

Audio files can also be put into the ZIP files. The custom ZipContentManager class has the ability to load an AudioEngine, SoundBank, and WaveBank stored inside. This can help take the cut down those massive XACT projects by a huge amount.

If you find any problems or have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post in the discussions area. I want to make this library as powerful and easy to use as can be, and the only way for that to happen is to get feedback from the people using it. If you find this library of any use, please also consider donating at the following page: http://nick.gravelyn.com/donations.php.

NEW POST: Multiple ZipFiles

NeilPryde — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:02:45 GMT

At this time i have 1 Content.zip that has all content in it.
In the game there are mutiple ZipContentManagers so i can manage unloading the way i need (no need for certain menustuff when you're in-game, etc).

I noticed that when i create a new zipcontentmanager the entire content.zip file is read into memory. The zip is now 40 Mb big and everytime i create a contentmanager i see the memoryusage increasy by 40 mb.

Are you really loading the entire zip in memory? If so, is there a way for me to make multiple zipfiles? Or should that be done manually?

NEW POST: ZipFileName

SimReality — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:20:07 GMT

That's what I figured, so I implemented it for the 1.3 release I just put out. :)

NEW POST: ZipFileName

NeilPryde — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:22:03 GMT

Yes, that would be very helpfull.
So just a public read-only property exposing the zipfile.

NEW POST: XACT problem

teh_programerer — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:15:47 GMT

Very good =D. The XACT does a good enough job, as you say. Thanks a lot, really helped reduce the size of my assets.

CLOSED ISSUE: EasyZip.targets Path Incorrect In Content Project

SimReality — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:27:10 GMT

A bug in the Project Updater was using an invalid path for EasyZip.targets.
Comments: Fixed in 1.3.

CLOSED TASK: Exclude XACT Files From ZIP File

SimReality — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:27:10 GMT

To solve a lot of issues involving audio content with the ZIP file, XACT project files are going to be excluded from the ZIP file. Since compressing compressed audio didn't benefit anyway, this shouldn't be a big issue to anyone. This will also fix issues with the ZIP files on Xbox 360.
Comments: Fixed in 1.3.

CLOSED TASK: Expose Zip File Name Property

SimReality — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:27:09 GMT

Expose the name of the zip file as a get-only property on the ZipContentManager.
Comments: Fixed in 1.3.

CREATED RELEASE: 1.3 (Apr 23, 2008)

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:26:24 GMT

Excluded XACT content from ZIP file.
Exposed FilePath property on ZipContentManager.
Removed all audio methods from ZipContentManager.
Fixed bug in Project Updater.

Source code checked in

SimReality — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:25:43 GMT

Excluded XACT content from ZIP file. Exposed FilePath property on ZipContentManager. Removed all audio methods from ZipContentManager. Fixed bug in Project Updater.

CREATED ISSUE: EasyZip.targets Path Incorrect In Content Project

SimReality — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:16:21 GMT

A bug in the Project Updater was using an invalid path for EasyZip.targets.

NEW POST: Unable to read the project file 'Content.contentproj'

SimReality — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:15:42 GMT

I took a look at this today (to fix some things) and there was a bug in the updater code. I should have 1.3 up tonight which resolves the issue to a degree. It's still best if you install to the default directory or else you will have to manually edit the paths, but even that was broken in 1.2 it seems.

CREATED TASK: Exclude XACT Files From ZIP File

SimReality — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:50:03 GMT

CREATED ISSUE: Expose Zip File Name Property

SimReality — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:48:38 GMT

Expose the name of the zip file as a get-only property on the ZipContentManager.

CLOSED ISSUE: Potential Maximum ZIP Size on Xbox

SimReality — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:47:50 GMT

Though Windows allows for ZIP files upwards of 2-3GB in size, there may be a much smaller limit on Xbox. A user reported an error when using a fairly small ZIP file of sounds that would work on Windows but not Xbox.
Comments: Issue not with size of ZIP file, but with file permissions on Xbox. Going to fix by excluding XACT files from being placed into ZIP file.

NEW POST: Unable to read the project file 'Content.contentproj'

SimReality — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:46:10 GMT

Yes, by default if you don't install to the default directory, your projects won't work. If you open up the .contentproj file in Notepad or Wordpad you'll see it's just XML. Look for any spot that has "$(ProgramFiles)\EasyZip\..." and update it to the path where you installed EasyZip. You may also have to open the EasyZip.targets file and make sure that the path in there for the DLL is correct as well. Should be near the top of the file.

It's a pain in the butt, but there wasn't a real easy way for me to fix it. I thought that the latest release was going to fix it, but perhaps not. If you have the latest release, when you install it are you moving the project updater? That whole folder structure has to remain as-is. You can move the entire folder if you want, but the updater is using its directory to generate those paths.

Give it a try editing those paths manually and let me know if you need help. Should be fairly easy (the .contentproj file is really short and I put all the EasyZip stuff at the top of EasyZip.targets).