StudioZip:Archive Tab

The Studio ZIP tab is the main view of the extension. It opens when you click an archive in the Explorer, and it is the default editor for all file types listed under Opens on click on the Supported Formats page.

The Studio ZIP tab with the tree on the left and the preview on the right

Layout

The tab has two panes with a splitter between them.

• Left: the file tree of the archive.
• Right: the preview of the selected file. See Preview.

Drag the splitter to change the width of the tree. Each pane keeps at least 160 pixels.

The tab follows the VS Code color theme, light or dark. It keeps its state while it is in the background, so the tree is not rebuilt and the scroll position stays when you switch tabs.

Summary line

The header above the tree shows the archive name, the number of files and the total size, for example Hytale.zip · 406 files · 7.6 GB.

• The size is the sum of the uncompressed sizes of all files, not the size of the archive on disk.
• Archives that cannot be written show · read-only at the end. Only the ZIP family is writable. See Editing Archives.
• For an archive inside another archive the name is the name of the inner archive.

File tree

• Folders come first, then files. Both are sorted by name, ignoring case, with numbers in natural order (2.jpeg before 10.jpeg).
• Folders on the top level are expanded when the tab opens. Click a folder to expand or collapse it.
• Click a file to select it and show its preview on the right.
• Files show their uncompressed size on the right side of the row.
• Many archives store no entries for folders. Studio ZIP adds the missing folders from the file paths, so the tree is complete anyway.

Icons

Icon	Meaning
Folder	A folder. The icon changes to an open folder when it is expanded.
Zip file	A nested archive, for example a .jar inside a .war. It can be opened in its own Studio ZIP tab.
Lock	An encrypted file.
PDF file	A .pdf file.
File	Any other file.

Actions on a file

When you hover a file row, two buttons appear on the right:

Button	What it does
Open in editor	Opens the file in a regular VS Code editor tab. A nested archive opens in a new Studio ZIP tab instead. See Editing Archives.
Extract…	Opens a save dialog and writes a copy of the file to the place you choose. The archive is not changed. A message Extracted <name>. confirms it.

Folders have no buttons. To extract a whole folder, mount the archive as a workspace folder and copy the folder in the Explorer. See Mounting an archive.

What the tab cannot do

• The tab itself is a viewer. Editing happens in a regular editor tab or in a mounted workspace folder.
• The tree is loaded once when the tab opens. After you change the archive, close the tab and open it again to see the new content. See FAQ.
• An archive can only have one Studio ZIP tab at a time.