I'm having a hard time to find a GUI for 7z archives which is similar to 7-Zip on Windows.
I need the ability to change compression strength and set a password. xarchiver and File-Roller both don't seem to be able to change compression strength.

Any ideas aside from running 7-Zip thru Wine, which I'd prefer to avoid?

I never heard of one.
There is p7zip (ported 7zip, see p7zip.sourceforge.net), but that's commandline only, no GUI. From that site
So it's a port of the command line version of 7-zip.

In the screenshot it's file-roller.
What's weird?
Clicking on the icon on top left you have a drop down menu which let you choose to create a new archive or open an existing one plus some more options.
And it works also with 7zip files if 7z is installed.

Unfortunately to have the same identical thing you have in windows you have no other way than keep using windows or expand your mind.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Ark gives a nice pretty gui to manage archives, although if you're not running KDE it also brings in an awful lot of KDE & QT libraries in order to work, which may make it undesirable.

The inability to change the compression ratio without fiddling around with config files every time you want to do so.
See also this post from Askubuntu from 5 years ago:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/5624...-gui-in-ubuntu
Nothing has changed since that time.

The only tool I came around now that offers a GUI to access the advanced settings is PeaZip.
But it comes with other quirks (e.g. only available as alien'ated .deb) and it tends to crash on my stock Mint 19.10, which might be the reason that it's not it any Debian based repository.

@Timothy Miller: Yeah, I'm on Xfce, but I wouldn't mind to install the required KDE/QT libs if it would offer ratio settings in the GUI. Does it?

Nothing has changed cause GNU/Linux != Windows and maybe GNU/Linux users don't feel such needs.

I use GNU/Linux only since 18 years and I have a Mechanic Degree nothing to do with IT, the think I love mostly of GNU/Linux?
If you have to chenge something it's enough to edit a plain text file.
Keep in mind that GNU/Linux has a different root from Windows.
Windows was created to sell computer to everyone, also to whom doesn't really need it, leaving the control to Microsoft.
GNU/Linux was created to give back the complete control of pc to the owner.
That's why you don't have click click program on GNU/Linux.

I completely forgot the existence of peazip.

Why don't you use the portable?
It's enougn to create a link to peazip executable in the menu and you are done without messing the system.

Neither ark suggested by Timothy looking at the GUI has what you are looking for but I won't install it only to check.
I said before why.
Who use GNU/Linux think GNU/Linux and the evidence are the five years without changes compared to the thread you linked.

Nothing wrong with using the command line.
But for those who insist:
q7z or j7z - http://q7z.xavion.name/
p7zip-gui - http://p7zip.sourceforge.net
k7z - https://sourceforge.net/projects/k7z/

1 members found this post helpful.

It does. It doesn't tell you WHAT the settings are, just a slider though:


https://i.ibb.co/Z6xFZxy/ark.png

1 members found this post helpful.

There are tarballs with the source code.
Not sure for who wants to avoid the command line.
And I'm not sure that they bring really a GUI which does what the OP asks for.

Maybe I'm dummy but where's the GUI in the linked page?
It's a really old page.
The link to unofficial debian (who could interest the OP who uses Mint) package are:
The first a broken link
The second to the official debian p7zip which is the command line utility.

There are tarball with the source code.
Not sure for who wants avoid the command line.


Same developer of q7z and j7z same source code, not sure for newbie.

If distros don't include such packages maybe there's a reason.

If you want to do everything with a GUI stay with Windows or go with Mac and it's not me it's the reality and emerged clear by this thread.

The only thing is to decompress peazip portable in /usr/share and create a link in the menu in addition to add /usr/share/pzipexecutable to thunar to associate it to archive.
As already suggested.
The quickest and smartest way, the only way I fear.

There is a portable (tar.gz) version too at this site:
http://osdn.net/dl/peazip/peazip_por...64.GTK2.tar.gz

I never used it, so I do not know if it covers your needs.

1 members found this post helpful.

oops, got sidetracked by a thread hijacker.

A piece of documentation and a terminal is a GUI that is merely split into two independent panes.

A documentional panel (like a browser with the docs) = the labels on buttons and sliders.
Terminal = instead of buttons you click with the mouse, you type what the labels tell you it into the textbox.

...
What?
It's true.

No, really.
It's really true, it's just a different flavor, and I'm not just being a 'smart a..leck'.
GUIs aren't the panacea anyway, there's plenty of awful GUIs out there, confusing and awkward, why not talk to the program directly?
You're literally doing the same thing in this case, only more awkwardly. You open the 7z gui, you scan it with your eyes completely until they have eventually found the label you are interested in.
Then you fiddle with those labels until they show you some options that you like, by, again, reading their GUI elements, dropdown lists, radio buttons, etcs.

Why not instead of searching for those labels, you type them in (since you have to know them to accurately use them in the GUI)?
Why instead of dragging your mouse around some widget to set a value (which you know, or you wouldn't be setting it), just type it in?
Because it's different?

Yeah, better.
Vastly superior. (at least in this case)
If you can read GUI labels and manipulate widgets to show values and whatever, then you can probably read and write them as an argument list. Faster too, unless you type really slowly.
It's the same thing, the same reading, it's the same reading if you want the entire range of functionality.
(If a GUI showed all the available options 7z has, with all of its permutations, then simply by logic, it would be mirroring the documentation at least in some way.)

If you prefer it 'slimmed down' and don't know the command line switches then you will be locked out of as much of the functionality as the GUI doesn't provide.

7z, archive, type zip, compression method switch x = 9 (compression level 9), compression method multithread, output archive, input file(s)

7z, extract, ouput destination, input archive

7z, archive, type 7z, compression method switch 0 = lzma, compression method switch x = 9 (compression level 9), compression method switch fb (fast bytes), compression method switch d (dictionary size), compression method switch s (solid mode), output archive, input files

Password is -p

Here is the documentation.
Command line switches
Since the compression method -m, relies on the type of compression -t , you can make it easier for your mind to put -t first.

Anyway, it's simple.
You think of the type you want to use.
Then you go to the method switch part and follow the link of the type you chose.
Then you look at the parameters and Bob's your uncle.
They're -m + the parameter.

I know this is not the answer you seek, but it should be the approach you should seek. In this case, the GUI is a marginal boon at best, and an outright detriment if you ever want to automate anything with 7z.
Write yourself a sheet cheat and use it. You might be tempted to think that that is overkill or not, but it's really not.
Even if you don't use it often.

If you really really really need a GUI then you'll have to either make do with what's available, use wine, or worse, ditch Linux, etc, or write a GUI or hope that someone writes it for you, or sponsor the writing of a GUI.

But I would say it's better to embrace the TUI in this case and collect support based on it.
Which people actually have an easier time giving since the 'language' is the same and nobody needs your exact GUI frontend while giving you awkward instructions where to click or where a widget shoul be or what it says.

1 members found this post helpful.

In this case (creating compressed files), I will say I would only use a GUI as well whenever possible. Rarely do I want to compress and entire folder. I want to compress some (and only some) of the files in that folder. It's *SIGNIFICANTLY* easier to click on all the files and drag them into a window than try to remember what those files names are, and have to type them, WITHOUT ERRORS, into a list. Triply if said files don't follow a naming scheme, but are completely randomly named.

I use the command line for a lot of things, and in fact I do create compressed files in the command line (getting logs from my servers), but for day-to-day creation of compressed files, it's far, far, far superior to use a GUI to the CLI.

I agree, that can be a pain, but is a file manager issue, really, or a lack of another command line tool.

After all, even if the files are randomly named, you still know at least some of the pattern, and if there truly is no pattern and you have a list of files you have to pick out of there, well, then you have a list of files you have to read or remember, so you could theoretically just write them down too.
Or...set the thing that generates these completely random files to put them into a named directory so you don't have to separete the pepper from the fly droppings, so to speak.
(As in, if those completely random names are inside a directory with more descriptive names, then you'd have to pick them bit by bit, or at least by inverting the selection of the sane files)

But, let's say that it's not a complete randomfest and you know what you're looking for, in that case a little utility that simply returns a list of files based on arguments, interpreting all arguments as wildcarded, and piping those into 7z would be better.

I mean, why scan the directory with your own eyes when you know what you're looking for (or you wouldn't click on the file when you see it) doing the work for the computer instead of the other way around, when you can tell the computer to do your work.

This is reminiscent of the "minimap" from the Sublime Text editor, one of the worst inventions ever devised that has set humanity back by putting the donkey in the carriage and the human in the front.

And worse, this eventually came full circle. People realized that having a tiny, nondescript matrix of dots was inferior to a clearly labeled outliner, sick of having to scrub through the dots to manually scan, they then used ASCII ART! To create more legible entries in the minimap so they could jump there...

Talk about feeding the dog through its butt.

Knowing what you look for, using a minimap to scan the 'visualized structure' of the file until your eyes spot the thing, getting sick of that, creating ascii art to 'make the minimap usable' and then using that as an outliner..to still click and drag instead of ...you know, named marks one could perhaps go to with a command, like :qmark foo_foo.


In fact, talking to the computer is so awesome, yet so 'forgotten' (or should I say exorcised by awful OS and thought paradigms) that shrewd businesses are now feeding the dog through the butt again by selling Alexas, Hey Googles and co.
Granted, they are cancerous blights of spyware, but their functionality is literally that of a shell.

Alexa find all files containing barbar!
grep -ir barbar ./*

It's crazy to me, people are paying money for something that was there all along, for someting computing basically STARTED with but simply didn't get to explore because terminal stuff kept being touted as "autismal ricer stuff only turbonerds/insufferable hipsters use", when ANYONE should use it, baby should use it, meemaw should use it.

It's not the end all be all, things graphical in nature should be interacted with graphically, not even I would want to set individual pixels via the command line, but it should also not be seen as the last resort.
It should be seen as the first resort and only if it's truly truly truly truly, millions times truly that awful or simply required, then use a TUI and then a GUI.
Okay, THAT is hyperbole, but ...yeah, for reals... the terminal needs to be vindicated more, imho anyway.

I gotta totally disagree. When you're just zipping 5 or 6 files for someone, but only need those few out of about a dozen (this is literally 99.99999999999999% of my compressing files), nothing, NOTHING is quicker and easier than using a gui.

2 members found this post helpful.