So. I kind of like BOMArchiverHelper.app, the default OS X unzipping utility. However, it has quite a number of limitations. Most other unarchivers on OS X have interfaces that I don't like, or just don't work very well. Also, thanks to Windows' idiotic idea of using the current system encoding for filenames, I have tons of archives from Japan with Shift_JIS filenames, which none of the unarchivers on OS X I've tried will handle properly.

And so I, because I obviously don't have enough to do already, get the idea that I need to write a better unarchiver. Features I think it needs include:

• Handle as many formats as possible. Not just Zip and Tar-Gzip, but RAR, 7-Zip, LhA, StuffIt, and anything else you can think of.
• Handle non-UTF8 filenames, perferrably automatically.
• Have a simple and straightforward interface like BOMArchiveHelper.app.
• Not leave .tar files lying around when unpacking .tar.gz files and the like.
• As a side benefit, produce some code that can be re-used to add archive support to Xee (so this whole project doesn't just steal time I could be working on Xee instead).

For actual information on the current state of this project, read on!

Is there a way to prevent 'The Unarchiver' from taking focus when it opens? I have it decompressing my downloads, and whenever a download completes it comes to the front and I lose whatever I was typing.

I would ditto post 641. It would be preferrable to see the unarchiver appear in the dock and then dissapear when it is done decompressing. A dock icon badge that shows the status of the unzip would be nice although not essential.

Unarchiver needs to stop popping into the foreground.