BetterZip has two view modes to display an archive's contents:
You can increase the font size used in the main window by pressing ⌘+ and decrease it pressing ⌘-.
Start with an empty document
Check this option, if BetterZip should open an empty archive window when started. Empty archive windows are reused when you open an archive.
Quit after last window closed
Check this option, if you want BetterZip to quit after you closed the last window.
Always open archives in Direct Mode
If possible for this archive format, open it in Direct Mode.
Create individual archives when compressing using the operations queue
Instead of compressing all selected files into one archive, BetterZip can compress each item into its own archive. If an item is a folder all its contents will, of course, be put into the same archive as the folder.
Opening an archive from the Finder immediately extracts it
Instead of displaying the archive's contents, BetterZip can immediately extract it when opened in the Finder. You can toggle the default behavior temporarily by holding down ^⌘ (ctrl+cmd) while opening the archive.
Reset "Don't Ask Me" Warnings
Click this button to have BetterZip display all alert panels again which you dismissed at some time checking the box "Don't show again".
At the moment BetterZip can only use one external helper tool and that is rar which lets you create rar archives. Extraction is built right into BetterZip, so you don't need an external tool for this.
On this tab you can manage your filter patterns that you can choose from the combobox in the filter pattern entry. Read more about filtering.
In this list all file types that BetterZip can handle are displayed. You can choose which types actually to connect with BetterZip. If you select a type, the previous handler will be saved and you can restore it by deselecting the type again.
On this tab you can manage your often used passwords. See the page The Archive Password Manager for more details.
On this tab you can set a few more options:
Concurrent archive operations: When you use the archive operations queue, BetterZip can throttle the number of operations that are executed at the same time. If this value is set to Auto (recommended), OS X will decide how many operations to execute depending on free system resources.
Temporary folder
You can set the temporary folder location. If you frequently create archives from files on disks other than the system disk, setting this folder to reside on the secondary disk will speed up adding files to new archives considerably.
Open unknown file types with
When you view a file of an unknown type, BetterZip will open the file with this application (by default the Finder). If you use a replacement for Finder like Path Finder, you can set this application here. Other possible uses of this setting are hex editors or text editors.
Post status messages to the Notification Center
BetterZip can notify you through the OS X Notification Center when operations in the queue have finished.