Well this has been pissing me off. All I would like to do is turn a whole folder into a zip file. I tried gzip -r ~/folder folder. But all that does is zip everyfile in every directory. All I want is the folder and every file within the folder, to be one file. If your confused sorry, because im still confused myself.

zip -9 -r zipname folder

-9 = best compression
-r = recursive

I tested this and it works as I think you are looking for.

yep that did it lol. I really need to spend more time with linux.