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The sidebar displays statistics and information about the currently open Zip file. Feeling particularly savvy, I brought up the Windows 8 Charms bar and clicked Share, only to find out that I “don’t have any apps that can share this content.” So, instead of using the much-vaunted sharing built into Windows 8, you have to use WinZip’s own solution. You can also opt to encrypt the files, and finally, you can save the file or send it to others using WinZip’s ZipSend and ZipShare services. You can see its name, how many folders and files it contains, and how big it is. Once you add files and folders, WinZip crunches some numbers and shows the archive’s vital statistics in the right sidebar.
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Opening a zip archive is easy in WinZip for Windows 8. Such perplexing moments are par for the course in most Modern apps, though. There’s no indication that’s what you’re supposed to do (I just had to figure it out by trying), and I have no idea what you’d do if you had a touchscreen with no way to right-click anything.
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It’s not without its Modern quirks, though: If you add a folder and regret it, you need to right-click the folder’s name at the bottom of the screen to remove it. Everything is enormous and touch-optimized, but the interface works.
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Once you tell it where you want to look for files, a file browser fills the screen. You can add files and folders locally, but WinZip for Windows 8 can also plug into Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyDrive, letting you pull files from those cloud services into your archive. The toolbar has six buttons: Add Files, Add a Folder, New Zip, Open Zip, and all the way to the far right, ZipSend and ZipShare. The file browser is simple to use, as long as you don’t try removing a folder you’ve asked to add. Hiding the toolbar like this is a standard Modern UI convention, and it’s just as terrible on WinZip for Windows 8 as it is in other applications. This is what you need to do to pop open a toolbar that’s hidden at the bottom of the screen-and that’s the toolbar you need to get anything done with WinZip for Windows 8. If you dontt, you may find yourself randomly clicking around until you happen to right-click anywhere on the screen. That’s great, if you happen to know what the “app bar” is.
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But it presents no buttons or menus: Only the cryptic line, “Use the app bar to start adding files/folders to a new Zip file or to Open an existing Zip file,” and a vast, soothing expanse of color. When you first launch WinZip for Windows 8, it takes over your entire screen, of course. Once you find the app bar, WinZip for Windows 8 lets you add files from your local storage, or from a cloud file storage service.
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