Zipguy - 2014/6/6 In case you are not familiar with SDX, I also have a page about ezsdx - a small frontend for sdx (which I've renamed to EasySDX) a page on my site all about SDX (and ML).

Even further, if you don't understand how to use SDX then you should read this excellent site, (or in pdf form)

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An excerpt of my new page I've added to my site:

"from chat 6/4/2014 20:37:03 AM

[20:37]    zipguy    I've got a question. Is there any way, in Tkchat to modify the 'Google selection' right-click option (on Windoze)?
[20:38]       * zipguy not to 'Bing'!
[20:42]    zipguy    Or is there anyway to change the menu that pops-up, and add command to it?
[20:42]    zipguy    er, commands

[21:13]    kbk    Of course there is. You have the source code..
[21:17]    zipguy    kbk All I have is tkchat.exe, not the source code, so I don't
[21:17]    kbk    It's a starpack. Unwrap it
[21:18]    zipguy    Ok I'll give it a try. Thanks kbk

From the sdx page at http://wiki.tcl.tk/3411

"sdx unwrap yourstarkit Extract the contents of a starkit into a file system. Creates a directory with the name [file root starkit].vfs The directory must not already exist."

It does not make any mention of 'unwrap'ing a foobar.exe, of the type, starpack.

So I did search http://wiki.tcl.tk, looking for 'unwrap' and did not find any mention, that you can unwrap a starpack! It did take me a while to do that.

That got me into another couple of problems.

• A few people may not aware of what SDX can do, unwrap a starpack. Yes
• Was it designed to do this? or was it unintentional? Yes & No
• Is it a secret that what SDX can do?
• Would anyone get mad at me, if I bring this up, on wiki.tcl.tk, and let a few people know what SDX is capable of? Nope. Great for me!
• Should I add these features to EasySDX, and make it easy for everyone to use them? Yes. Sounds good to me!

Some of them are unanswered... but most are solved!"

There's a lot more there for SDX lovers.

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RLE (2014-06-06): Re. your first point above, if you run sdx with the "help" option, it will print out a list of commands and a short description of each.

So "not being aware" is as much "not bothering to ask" as anything else.

Re. unwrapping a starpack, that file is just a starkit attached to an executable in a single file. So it should have been fairly obvious that if you can unwrap a kit, and a starpack == exe+kit, that you can unwrap an pack.

Additionally, the sdx help has this as one of the line items:

  mksplit     Split starkit/starpack into head and tail files

Which if you test it, splits a pack into an exe and a kit. And so, using "mksplit" and then following with "unwrap" of the tail should have been reasonably obvious as well.

Was sdx designed to unwrap a pack, yes. Given what a pack is, it was designed to unwrap it, because it's just a kit in disguise.

Zipguy - 2014/6/6 Good Points. Mea culpa (my fault). Sorry [RLE}

I made the changes you recommended, above.

Part of my problem, is that on Windows 7, SDX is a real pain to run. That's why I created EasySDX, and have been using it happily for a couple of years. So I haven't run SDX alone for years, too. Also, it does print out a rather lengthy list of commands, of which only one mentions starpack, namely mksplit, only when you run SDX directly, for help, which I haven't, for years.

It's interesting that I got no comments about searching for 'unwrap' on wiki.tcl.tk, which I did do, and looked at all the pages that came up, in response to my search, for the 'unwrap' a starpack. I might have missed a few, like sdx, but came up empty.

Some things about SDX, are hard for me to understand. I must be thick about SDX, so, it was not obvious to me. I love what SDX does, it is terrific. But it is a little hard for someone like me, to understand how it does, what it does.

One look at how many pages are out there, about creating a starkit, or starpack, or questions about SDX, makes it obvious to me, that I'm not alone, in this regard.

As far as the mksplit, I'll look into that.

RLE (2014-06-06): Did something change since the 20110317 version of sdx. Because asking for "help" from that version gives the following three lines that mention starpacks (I added the extra emphasis):

  lsk         List contents of a starkit or __starpack__
  mkpack      Remove free space from Metakit file or starkit or __starpack__
  mksplit     Split starkit/__starpack__ into head and tail files

However, your points have some validity. Given that this aspect was non-obvious to you means the docs re. sdx could do with some more details.

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