bug#25076: 24.5; Enhancement request: Make `archive-mode' more Dired like (sorting etc.)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 12:14:34 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: 25076@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> > > Subject line says it all.  `archive-mode' still seems pretty
> > > rudimentary.  It would be good to at least be able to sort the
> > > lines by file name etc.
> > 
> > I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be smarter to actually use dired to
> > access archives, like how we can use dired to access remote
> > directories through tramp.
> > 
> > I expect this is probably a much bigger/harder job than I imagine,
> > but what would be required? Just a function that could produce ls style
> > output for archives?
> 
> I can't speak to that question.  I suggest that you file a separate
> enhancement request for it.  If it turns out that it is trivial then
> the two bugs can be merged - I don't have any objection to being
> able to use Dired (completely) for archives.
> 
> But no, it is not just a question of producing an ls-style listing.
> The various Dired operations available currently expect a file as
> target.

Then one almost obvious solution is to unpack the archive under
temporary-file-directory, and invoke Dired on that.

In any case, IMO adding such a feature (which I agree should be nice)
is out of scope of archive-mode, as it is designed.  Its basic design
is to show you the archive as it is on disk, with no changes.  The
file listing you are looking at in archive-mode is in most cases a
specially-formatted TOC that is recorded in the archive.  Changing its
order means changing the archive itself, which is not what the request
wants, AFAIU.

So if Dired on a temporary copy is not a good solution for some
reason, I guess we need a new mode, which will reuse some basic
capabilities of archive-mode, but otherwise be designed similarly to
Dired.