The Expander Icon
Location in the BeOS: /apps/Expander

Expander is the man, er, app for your decompression job.

Hey, you! Yeah, Buddy, I'm talking to you! What? You don't recognize me?

No, I'm not that guy from the Village People. I'm the Expander. I'm the guy who unpacks your files on the BeOS.

You got a tar file? I'll un-tar it. You got a zip file? I'll un-zip it. You got a gzip file? You think you might need to call in the big guns for this one? No sweat! 'Cause I'm already there, expanding it for you. When it comes to unpacking files, I got some serious muscle. All you gotta do is double-click the compressed file, and there I am, getting the job done.

Now, they say that brains and beauty don't go together, but I'm living proof that it just ain't so. See, when you work with me, you got options. You can do the job quick and easy, bada-bing, bada-boom, or you can give me detailed instructions about how you want the job done, and I'll follow them to the T.

You got a particular destination for the final expanded file, I can handle it. You want to set up preferences for where and how files get saved, I got you covered. You want me to leave windows open or clean up the Desktop and disappear without a trace when I'm through? No problemo! I'm your guy!

Now here's a little secret I'm gonna let you in on, just 'cause we're friends:

You got a package you can't unpack? I mean, the package says ".zip" or ".tar", but when you double-click it, it just sits there, and I don't appear to be doing much of anything? Don't worry! What you most likely got is a MIME-type problem, and I can help you on this one. Just hold down the Control key when you drag and drop the package in question onto my icon. If there is any way on this planet that I can help you unpack this package, Control-drag-and-dropping it on me will do the trick. And if I can't help you even with this trick, well, Buddy, you got bigger problems!

Now to be fair, you could do all your untarring and unzipping from the Terminal window -- but then you'd miss looking at these massive pecs and great biceps of mine. So, I know you'll want to keep a softlink of me on your Desktop, just so you can hand off your files in person. You know the routine: drag 'em and drop 'em on me. I can handle it!

By the way, if you see the Cowboy or the Motorcycle Cop, tell 'em I think I can get 'em some work in the Network Server...