CompuServe Thread

FSTGIF.LHA (from the AmigaArts Forum) is a compressed archive. Nearly all of the programs here in the libraries are compressed in one fashion or another and need to be de-compressed before they can be used. Archiving files like this keeps all of a programs files together and makes the download much faster (and therefore it costs less money!). You can tell which decompression program you need by looking at the file extension of the archived program you downloaded. xxxx.LHA uses LHA138.RUN xxxx.LZH uses LHA138.RUN xxxx.ARC uses ARC.EXE xxxx.ZOO uses ZOO.ARC These are the most popular 'crunchers' and can be found in Library 16 of Amiga user. Any file with a file extension of '.RUN' or '.EXE'. means that it does not require a separate program to decompress. A file with the extension of '.TXT', '.DOC', or '.MAN' means that it is an ascii text file that can be loaded in to any text editor, or read with with the Amiga program 'MORE'. xxx.LHA and xxx.LZH files requires the program LHA138.RUN which you can find in AmigaUser library 16 (which is where all of the archivers/crunchers are kept). Download that file using a protocol. NOTE: If you use XMODEM for your download, be sure to turn the AUTO-CHOP feature of your terminal software on, or LHA138.RUN won't work). LHA138.RUN is a special kind of archive called a SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVE. Now, let's say you've got LHA138.RUN on a floppy in DF0: (this assumes you have and are installing to a hard drive)… 1) Open a shell 2) TYPE CD DF0: 3) TYPE LHA138.RUN 4) TYPE COPY LHA C: You now have the program LHA in your C: directory on your hard drive, which means you can use it to compress or decompress files anywhere on your system. There is also now a file on your DF0: disk called LHA.MAN (or .TXT or .DOC) that is a readable text file containing instructions for using LHA. You can read this by loading it in to any text editor you have. Now, let's get to your archived file… Close the shell and then double click on your WORK: partition to open it's window. From the workbench menu, choose WINDOW, NEW DRAWER, and then rename the new drawer to what you want. Now, Insert the disk with the archive (archivename.LHA or whatever) in to DF0: 1) Open a shell 2) TYPE CD WORK:<directoryname> 3) TYPE COPY DF0:<archivename>.LHA 4) TYPE LHA -x x <archivename>.LHA You will see LHA extract (or "unpack") all of the related files that come with the archive. After it's done, find the files called README and/or xxx.DOC or xxx.txt and load them into any text editor. These text files (if there are any) will explain how to setup and install the program on your system.