Files Tab

Use

  • Extracting files ,and converting images
  • When building new container files

     The Files Tab has several uses ,one is to allow you to open,extract game files from container files,it will also show image files that you may convert to bmp files,the other use is when you are creating a new container file.


    Extracting files ,and converting images


     The files tab is quite plain. The file you have open will be displayed near the bottom. When you click on one of the items in the list ,two buttons will appear. "Extract" or "Extract_All" for container files or they will be labled as "Img > Bmp" or "Img>Bmp All" for image files. Also for container files the size of the file will appear below the two buttons, in the case of a multi slection the last file selected size will be the one shown.

    When you open a container file ,the entire contents will be shown.

    For image files when you select one file in the open dialog box,Cage will load all image file names with the same extension from that directory into the list.It will also check the file type of the selected file. It only does this once so do not mix up files such as DarkForces and JediKnight BM files in the same directory. It will process the files according to the first file type it checked.In other words bad karma.

    Selecting files. There is several ways you can select some files from the list.

    1. Left mouse click once on any file
    2. Hold down the "CTRL" key and click on files with the left mouse button
    3. Hold down the left mouse button and drag down the list
    4. Select one file, move up or down the list,press and hold a "SHIFT" key,select a file, all files in between the two selections will be selected

    Pressing the "Extract_All" button will cause Cage to either extract or convert all files in the list. Pressing the "Extract" button will cause Cage to only act with the selected files.

    After pressing either of the "Extract" buttons ,a save dialog will open, you will have the choice to cancel the operation, or choose a directory to place the files in. You can create a new directory at this time by Right mouse clicking in the file location of this window and choosing "NEW/FOLDER" , you can also rename that directory with the same method.

    If the container file has directory paths in it, Cage will recreate those directories for you and place the extracted files in them. By default Cage will save in a subfolder called "Extracted_Files".

    Cage will warn you if the drive you are about to extract to has less than 200MB of free space left. You will have the choice of continuing or aborting at that time.It only checks the free space just before any conversion or extraction operation so if you are low on space and try extracting all the files from a 180mb file you could run out of disk space.

    Animated /multiframe images in DarkForces ,JediKnight BM and JK Mat files will be extracted as filename_framenumber.bmp ie : switch.bm with two frames will be converted as switch_0.bmp and switch_1.bmp, one image for each frame.

    Half-Life Wad files, these contain images in their own wad format, selecting these will automaticly convert them to bmp on extraction. Currently it won`t convert cache.wad or extract font files yet.


    When building new container files


     To make a new container first visit the instructions on the New_C tab page.

     For most file types other than Half_life wads , once you press the "begin " button you will be brought to this tab. you will see a list of the files that will be included in the wad, review them , and if that is what you want press the "OK " button , Cage will then proceed to build the actual container file. If there is a few unwanted files select them (single select only allowed at this point) and press the "remove" button, Cage will remove the file from the list of files to be included. Pressing the cancel button ,Cancels the container creation process.

     Below the "cancel" button Cage will display the total size of the files that will be included. It is not the complete container file size , that will be somewhat larger depnding on container file type.

     If you have created any files in the default "Temp" directory , when you close Cage it will ask if it can delete these files. You can choose to let Cage clean out the directory or not. If there is no files in this directory Cage will not ask to delete them.

      Depending on the speed of your computer and the size of the container being created ,it may appear Cage has stalled in it`s progress of building the container. Give it a few mins before trying to halt it. If there is one big file in amongst many smaller size files it will appear Cage has stopped working. This is because the progress bar shows the total progess for all files and not each individual file being added. It would flash most of the time if that was the case. Speed of creation also depends a bit on the file type,some are easier and faster to create than others.