Optimise Compression

This collection of KDE service menus allows you to *losslessly* optimise the sizes of various files. Possible use includes:

* creating smaller e-mail attachments
* speeding up your Web site (since the files will download faster)

The service menu files are as follows:

* optimise_png.desktop - for PNG files
* optimise_mng.desktop - for MNG files
* optimise_zip.desktop - for Zip-based files, including
- OpenOffice.org/StarOffice documents and templates (.sx?, .st?)
- OASIS OpenDocument (.od?, .ot?)
- Java archive (.jar)
- Mozilla extensions (.xpi)
* optimise_gzip.desktop - for GZip-based files, including
- AbiWord documents (.abw.gz, .zabw)
- DVI (.dvi.gz)
- PostScript (.ps.gz)
- bitmap fonts (.bdf.gz, .pcf.gz, .snf.gz)
- Tar (.tar.gz, .tgz)
- SVG (.svgz)
- VRML (.wrl.gz)

AdvanceCOMP [http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/comp-readme.html] is required to be installed for this functionality. In addition, PNG files may be optimised using OptiPNG [http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~cosmin/pngtech/optipng/]. Most PNG files are best optimised by running OptiPNG followed by AdvanceCOMP, but some are better optimised after using only one of these tools. Results will vary depending on the file.

Note that these processes are extremely CPU-intensive. If you have a slow system or are optimising many files at once you might prefer the "default" over the "maximum" optimisation options. The difference at the end is likely to be nominal. The processes run in the background, so you should be able to carry on with other tasks in the meanwhile.

In some cases, the AdvanceCOMP tools may deliver a CRC error and refuse to optimise the file. This does not damage the file.

To install, copy the .desktop files to ~/.kde4/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus/

The service menus have been tested with KDE 4.1, but I believe they should work with earlier versions that support service menus.

NB: This project was formerly known as "Optimise PNG".

2009-01-31
Version 1.6
* Compatible with KDE4 (thanks to Pierre Buard)
* French translation (thanks to Pierre Buard)

2005-05-22
Version 1.5
* Better visual feedback:
- Output is displayed inside a konsole window
- A passive pop-up lets the user know that the process has commenced

2005-05-08
Version 1.4
* Added support for GZipped AbiWord (.abw.gz and .zabw), DVI (.dvi.gz), bitmap
fonts (.bdf.gz, .pcf.gz, .snf.gz), Tar (.tar.gz, .tgz), VRML (.wrl.gz),
OpenOffice.org/StarOffice documents and templates (.sx?, .st?), OASIS
OpenDocument documents and templates (.od?, .ot?), Java archive (.jar) and
Mozilla extensions (.xpi)
* split optimise_compression.desktop into optimise_gzip.desktop and
optimise_mng.desktop

2005-05-01
Version 1.3
* Added support for GZipped SVG (.svgz) files
* Performance enhancements:
- files are now processed sequentially rather than in parallel
- files are now processed in the background

2004-11-08
Version 1.2
* Renamed project to "Optimise Compression" to reflect feature enhancements
* Added support for Zip (.zip), GZip (.gz, including .tar.gz), and MNG (.mng)
files

2004-11-03
Version 1.0
* Named "Optimise PNG"
* Optimise PNG files only