Pacifist 2.6.3

Pacifist 2.6.3 is known as an useful application for Mac OS X that helps you open up .pkg installer packages, .dmg disk images, .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .pax, and .xar archives, and more, and allows you to install individual files out of them. This is useful if you need to install just one file out of a package instead of the entire package (for example, if you deleted your Preview application and need to reinstall it, but not the whole operating system), if you experience bugs in Installer.app that mess up your symbolic links, or if you just like a little more control over the installation process. Pacifist can open some archive formats over HTTP, in case you want to download only one file from a large .zip archive without downloading the whole file. Finally, Pacifist can examine the kernel extensions installed in your system to let you see what installer installed them, and whether the installer was made by Apple or a third-party.

Major Features:

1. Compiled as a Universal Binary for full speed on Intel-based Macs
2. Lets you install individual items or folders from .pkg packages, either to their default install locations or to a custom location you specify
3. Allows you to install to a disk other than the boot disk if you prefer
4. Works with the new Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” package format as well as packages from older Mac OS X versions ranging from Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger” to the Mac OS X Public Beta
5. Supports .pkg packages, .mpkg metapackages, .zip archives, .bom file listings, .dmg disk images, and .pax, .pax.gz, .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .cpio, .cpio.gz, .cpio.bz2, and .xar archives
6. Support for .zip archives with extensive format support - should correctly extract Mac and UNIX metadata from Apple’s Zip format as well as MacZip, SmartZip, ZipIt, and InfoZip archives. In order to achieve support for all these formats as well as the “Open URL” feature, Pacifist has a new Zip parser written completely from scratch rather than using existing functionality such as the ‘zip’ command-line tool.
7. A new “Open URL” feature makes it possible to remotely load archives over the network. For .zip, .xar, .dmg, and Leopard .pkg packages, this feature only downloads the portion of the file which is necessary to read it, causing files to open much more quickly than it would take to download the whole archive (.zip files, in particular, are very fast - try it!).
8. All files in a package can be viewed right in Pacifist using of a new “View Files” feature. The “View Files” feature includes support for various text and image file types, as well as support for RTF, RTFD, HTML, MS Word, and property list files. Pacifist also includes a new hexadecimal file viewer for viewing binary files and unknown file types.
9. Includes the ability to verify existing intallations, comparing the files on your hard disk with the files listed in the package, and notifying you of missing files as well as files that have different permissions or checksums than those listed in the package*
10. Follows all symlinks and aliases properly, without overwriting them
11. Doesn’t alter the properties of existing folders, including their permissions
12. Correctly gives the sizes of a package, both compressed and uncompressed
13. Displays the following information about files in packages: path, size, kind, owner, group, permissions, modification date, checksum
14. Allows the user to selectively choose whether or not to display certain types of metadata
15. Inspector window gives a more detailed look at files in a package
16. Displays total size of currently selected files, letting you know exactly how much space your installation will take on your hard disk. Dynamically updates this size as the selection changes.
17. Includes the ability to view a package’s resources, such as the Read Me file, the install scripts, etc.
18. Correctly sets all file owner and permission settings
19. Allows the user to override a package’s authentication requirement
20. Automatically converts AppleDouble files into resource forks and metadata when installing on HFS+ disks (leaves the files alone if installing on UFS)
21. Automatically updates prebinding information after installation to optimize system performance (disabled by default on Mac OS X 10.4 and higher)
22. Allows the user to create receipts for .pkg packages
23. It is possible to cancel the extraction at any stage of the installation
24. Multiple-document interface
25. Multi-threaded
26. Has a working search feature
27. Supports drag and drop
28. Supports contextual menus
29. Commonly used functions available via toolbar
30. Auto filename completion
31. Works with compressed or uncompressed packages
32. By default, prompts before replacing any files
33. Uses the Security Framework if the files will need to be installed as root
34. If you install a folder and the folder already exists, Pacifist installs the folder’s contents and doesn’t overwrite the parent folder. The exception is application bundles, which by default will ask you what to do.
35. Works around a bug in pax so that hard links extract from packages correctly instead of generating “File not found” errors
36. Spiffy icons by Adam Betts
37. Czech localization by Lukáš Vajda
38. Dutch localization by Koen van Hees French localization by Ronald Leroux
39. German localization by Sebastian Krauß, Martin Bestmann, Goetz Goerisch, and Norbert Rittel
40. Italian localization by Gabriele Callari
41. Japanese localization by Takehiko Hatatani

Enhancements:

• Worked around an oversight in Snow Leopard’s Finder that caused drag-and-drop to the Finder not to work properly