wordpress plugins as zips not tar.gz

Sure I must be doing something quite dumb here but why are wordpress plugins all supplied as zip files? Seems to me that tar.gz would be more useful.

Is there a way to unzip them on a cpanel server? Only tar.gz seem to offer an extract option.

I have just done a few - download - unpack - pack again as tar - again as tar.gz
Then they're ready to upload and extract using cpanel- file manager.

What am I missing?

 

wordpress has a import and install option for plugins with the new version. In normal installations its at:
"www.youresite.com/wp-admin/plugin-install.php"

Here you can select the zip file and install it without uploading it with FTP or SSH. ATM only zip is supported thats why.

 

Hi,

If you want to install a wordpress, we can do this for you at a nominal cost.

 

Thanks, rjd. That explains it.

Don't know about anyone else but for me replacing something that works without me waiting for a browser response (FTP client) with a web page interface is not an improvement.

Guess an FTP client with option to repackage a zip as tar.gz will be my next step.

 

put in an easy download plugin and u can install plugins directly to the blog without even having to DL them to your local pc. it's great!