Need Feedback for (wip) UHC-GUI

[DisasterIncarna]

the important part is that stuff works, hopefully get some more input back from the test version before you bundle anything up officially .

If you want something more lightweight than Multiview, try using C:More or other lightweight text viewer, to preconfigure that, Echo "C:More" or "C:MuchMore" or the likes to "> UHC:UHC-GUI.readview"

UHC-GUI stores its text based prefs files in UHC:

if "Stuff" works for enough people i will replace the version in the first post with the test version.

[EctoOne]

The size of Multiview isn't the problem. I don't have normal Workbench files on the disk.
But the problem is that adding WBRun actually is too much now. I added a file manager as optional package which requires to delete lha.run and UHCTools.lha. Which are still the only packages I included.
But now the disk is getting full during the installation of your GUI. Pretty funny.
Now I need to decide if I make WBRun optional or just delete the packages anyway. I mean they are useless at that point anyway. Unless someone wants the docs or whatever.
Since I was considering adding a better text editor anyway, I might just end up deleting them instantly.

Edit: Let me quickly make a version with WBRun as optional package and I will upload a disk for you to see what I've done.

[DisasterIncarna]

didnt you include lha in your setup? maybe lha some of your files? and just extract them to ram to use them? save a bit more space on your disk.

EDIT: Just to annoy you further, i just deleted the test version and replaced it with....another test version, redownload the previous link.

UHC-Tools on FS-UAE on the steam deck, for reasons beyond my comprehension was producing an error message about setsockopt()...something/something, which doesnt seem to break anything, it still works, but was putting the error message on the bottom of the selection list, the update just hides/stops that error from appearing... which I am guessing is a handy thing...for just me atm and not many more

Also added an About menu option because why not.

[EctoOne]

I don't think archiving my files would help much. They are just small scripts.

Yeah I've had that socket error like forever. I believe it's emulator based.

Here is the disk image. Have a look but one thing I forgot to mention in the guide is, that it might not work if UHC is already installed. I suggest using it on a backed up workbench disk to test.

NOTE: The file is named UHC-Disk.zip but it is an adf. I had to change it otherwise I couldn't upload it. Just rename it to UHC-Disk.adf

Since it is an online based installation, it won't have the test version of your GUI, which makes WBRun pretty useless currently.

[DisasterIncarna]

got it, ill have a play, ill make a copy of my OS3.1 HDF and use that.

[DisasterIncarna]

It works, a few typos in the readme/guide, during installation its clear what it is doing, however on the part specifically mentioning "Installing UHC", it looks like the script has frozen, mostly because it takes a LOOOOONG time to do what its doing and you arent quite sure if its working and just taking a while or if its got stuck, maybe add an extra echo stating this part can take a while.

Luckily it just took a long time then carried on and completed successfully, at this point i made a boo-boo, i had deleted my UHC entry in user-startup, deleted SYS:UHC and rebooted and your startup failed to function, after looking at your script i found that i should also have deleted my ENVARC:UHCBIN because i didnt delete that your script assumed a fully functioning UHC was present and proceeded to not do what was intended.

So i deleted it, rebooted and relaunched and it worked perfectly, no errors or anything, the GUI launched perfectly fine. SO, it IF the test GUI has no or less errors/bugs than the 1 on aminet i should probably upload that version, IF the test version is working ok.

Good work on the disk I got there in the end when i realized my mistake when trying to clean/wipe out UHC.

[DisasterIncarna]

something i didnt notice on my OS3.2 setup, which i do on my cleaner, more basic OS3.1 setup is that trying to read a ReadMe from MorphOS Storage requires AMISSL.

[patrik]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

UHC-Tools on FS-UAE on the steam deck, for reasons beyond my comprehension was producing an error message about setsockopt()...something/something, which doesnt seem to break anything, it still works, but was putting the error message on the bottom of the selection list, the update just hides/stops that error from appearing... which I am guessing is a handy thing...for just me atm and not many more

Is it when you call uhcsearch for search or aget to download readmes? For example, will you also see it if you run “uhcupdate FORCE”?

[patrik]

Originally Posted by EctoOne

The size of Multiview isn't the problem. I don't have normal Workbench files on the disk.
But the problem is that adding WBRun actually is too much now. I added a file manager as optional package which requires to delete lha.run and UHCTools.lha. Which are still the only packages I included.
But now the disk is getting full during the installation of your GUI. Pretty funny.
Now I need to decide if I make WBRun optional or just delete the packages anyway. I mean they are useless at that point anyway. Unless someone wants the docs or whatever.
Since I was considering adding a better text editor anyway, I might just end up deleting them instantly.

Edit: Let me quickly make a version with WBRun as optional package and I will upload a disk for you to see what I've done.

If space is very scarce, you could make a bit more space by using a cruncher like shrinkler or powerpacker on the executable files on the disk.

[EctoOne]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

It works, a few typos in the readme/guide, during installation its clear what it is doing, however on the part specifically mentioning "Installing UHC", it looks like the script has frozen, mostly because it takes a LOOOOONG time to do what its doing and you arent quite sure if its working and just taking a while or if its got stuck, maybe add an extra echo stating this part can take a while.

Yeah, I've noticed that the UHC installation took a while, but since I did most of the testing on a RAD I forgot about it. Adding another additional line isn't no problem.
English isn't my first language, so errors are expected to happen. But I will probably put more work in the guide. If I remember correctly there are some special features I want try.

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

Luckily it just took a long time then carried on and completed successfully, at this point i made a boo-boo, i had deleted my UHC entry in user-startup, deleted SYS:UHC and rebooted and your startup failed to function, after looking at your script i found that i should also have deleted my ENVARC:UHCBIN because i didnt delete that your script assumed a fully functioning UHC was present and proceeded to not do what was intended.

So i deleted it, rebooted and relaunched and it worked perfectly, no errors or anything, the GUI launched perfectly fine.

That's why I mentioned that it probably won't work with UHC already installed. Adding a check to circumvent this is not hard, but it seems unnecessary. I rather work on expanding the script to make the whole disk installable on a HDD. Then installing the original would almost be obsolete. But then updating UHC from the shell wouldn't be as easy, because the assign/path is only set when UHC-GUI is running. That's why I also asked for a way to update from the GUI itself.

Originally Posted by patrik

If space is very scarce, you could make a bit more space by using a cruncher like shrinkler or powerpacker on the executable files on the disk.

The issue is that I'm not providing any (unpacked) executables, the entire installer uses scripts to download the packages and then just copies the minimum amount of files to the disk. I could add an extra step to download a cruncher first but that seems weird.
Since the disk is mainly used for emulated systems, I was considering using a HD disk instead of a DD disk, but I'm not sure if people would recognize the difference and check their settings. But as long as everything fits, I won't bother thinking about it.

[Etze]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

Basically, as usual, leave your results here, good/bad/broken/etc... cheers.

Yeah, now the menu is readable!

And displaying the readme works like a charm.

Thanks!

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by patrik

Is it when you call uhcsearch for search or aget to download readmes? For example, will you also see it if you run “uhcupdate FORCE”?

i got it when the gui called aminetrecent, the error would be latched onto the end of the output and the gui mistakenly thought it was a valid entry so i just skip past anything that starts with that error message, plus it only happens on steam deck emulation for me, never happened on my main pc.

[DisasterIncarna]

updated the Current archive on first post and risked sending current version to Aminet, hopefully no glaring breakable issue will appear.....yet.

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by EctoOne

Yeah, I've noticed that the UHC installation took a while, but since I did most of the testing on a RAD I forgot about it. Adding another additional line isn't no problem.
English isn't my first language, so errors are expected to happen. But I will probably put more work in the guide. If I remember correctly there are some special features I want try.

That's why I mentioned that it probably won't work with UHC already installed. Adding a check to circumvent this is not hard, but it seems unnecessary. I rather work on expanding the script to make the whole disk installable on a HDD. Then installing the original would almost be obsolete. But then updating UHC from the shell wouldn't be as easy, because the assign/path is only set when UHC-GUI is running. That's why I also asked for a way to update from the GUI itself.


The issue is that I'm not providing any (unpacked) executables, the entire installer uses scripts to download the packages and then just copies the minimum amount of files to the disk. I could add an extra step to download a cruncher first but that seems weird.
Since the disk is mainly used for emulated systems, I was considering using a HD disk instead of a DD disk, but I'm not sure if people would recognize the difference and check their settings. But as long as everything fits, I won't bother thinking about it.

A thought comes to mind after using your disk/script for a while, esp when concerning your problems with limited space on a floppy and the need to keep something instantly useable which you mentioned by not wanting to use a HDF.

So.

How about using a RAM/RAD Disk? instead of your script spending time writing into the limitations of the ADF/880k floppy, why dont you just mount a RAD Disk which by default is 880k by way of HighCyl=79, that HighCyl can be upped to any size you like and you can download/unpack to the created RAD disk at much quicker speeds and the RAD disk can just be any size you like and you can include anything you like within reason and memory limits for your targeted audience.

I tried it in part by using this

Activate        = 1
Device		= ramdrive.device
Unit		= 0
Flags		= 0
LowCyl          = 0
HighCyl         = 79
Surfaces	= 2
SectorsPerTrack	= 11
SectorSize      = 512
Reserved	= 2
Interleave	= 0
Buffers		= 5
BufMemType	= 1

Bog standard RAD Disk stuff right there, saved it as UHCInst and can just mount it from icon or just by calling.

Mount UHCInst: From DEVS:DOSDrivers/UHCInst

I Think it mounted as Device: UHCInst with a label of RAM_0: so i just called Relabel UHCInst: UHCInst to look a bit more tidy.

So this would mean your disk could remain a pure install disk, you wouldnt have to write/delete anything to your Install Disk as it would make a RAD disk and download/organise anything needed to there instead.

I Forget how you set its bootpriority to negatives so on reset/reboot it wont try to boot from it instead of the emulated boot drive.
EDIT: Aha, thsi to the rescue: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=40009

[EctoOne]

But you need to run the installation every time after a Hard Reset or shutdown. Sure, it would be quick to do on a RAD but still. I'm using uae4arm and a RAD does not survive a reset from the GUI. I'm also not sure about the RAM usage when using such a big RAD. This again probably won't be an issue on an emulated system, but yeah... not sure.

To speed things up I could create a RAD for the installation and then copy it to either a disk or directly an adf (if that is even possible, and if it is, it would require another program), but that won't fix the limited space.

Like, I said. Currently everything still fits. So as long as your GUI or UHC don't become super huge all of a sudden, it should be fine.

[Swe_Kryten2x4b]

I'm not sure if I've missed something...If I did, sorry. Still, using the latest test-version and have set my preferred text-viewer in the prefs and saved it.

Not a big deal but still.

The first time using "view readme" (aminet only one tried so far) after boot I get a "no file to delete" error. If I relaunch the GUI and try to view the same readme-file: no error.

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by EctoOne

But you need to run the installation every time after a Hard Reset or shutdown. Sure, it would be quick to do on a RAD but still. I'm using uae4arm and a RAD does not survive a reset from the GUI. I'm also not sure about the RAM usage when using such a big RAD. This again probably won't be an issue on an emulated system, but yeah... not sure.

To speed things up I could create a RAD for the installation and then copy it to either a disk or directly an adf (if that is even possible, and if it is, it would require another program), but that won't fix the limited space.

Like, I said. Currently everything still fits. So as long as your GUI or UHC don't become super huge all of a sudden, it should be fine.

nice, yeah i was thinking of any future updates for the GUI, wasnt sure if the slow increases in size would eventually be an issue or not.

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by Swe_Kryten2x4b

I'm not sure if I've missed something...If I did, sorry. Still, using the latest test-version and have set my preferred text-viewer in the prefs and saved it.

Not a big deal but still.

The first time using "view readme" (aminet only one tried so far) after boot I get a "no file to delete" error. If I relaunch the GUI and try to view the same readme-file: no error.

ill look into that readme error, the way the readmes works is a bit of an issue, if i redirect the readme into its normal name then i would have to track all the names to be able to delete them, which i cant do if you still have a readme open in say multiview as the program locks the file while you are viewing it so i cant delete it.

I also didnt want you only being able to open 1 at a time so i have the readmes setup with set names based on the download site and the index number they occupy, this makes it a "bit" easier managing them.

What i do is, any time you open a readme, the GUI tries to delete all UHC-GUI generated readmes with their unique names so nothing else unrelated gets deleted by accident, if you happen to have a readme open at the time, it will ofc fail to delete, you can carry on reading the file but any older/other readmes will get removed. This also means multiple readmes can be open at once without stopping the GUI from functioning and it doesnt need to wait for previous readmes to be closed.

As an example, if you click View Readme on entry 2 from aminet then a readme is initially generated as UHCAmReadme02.txt.

i am still looking at the best way to do this and i "thought" i had told the delete calls to all be "QUIET", might have to throw a "> NIL:" in there just to make sure errors are suppressed.

good catch tho, cheers.

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by Swe_Kryten2x4b

I'm not sure if I've missed something...If I did, sorry. Still, using the latest test-version and have set my preferred text-viewer in the prefs and saved it.

Not a big deal but still.

The first time using "view readme" (aminet only one tried so far) after boot I get a "no file to delete" error. If I relaunch the GUI and try to view the same readme-file: no error.

Here is another test version that sends errors to NIL: as using the QUIET option alone doesnt seem to.... well, make it quiet, also, on the off chance that the unique filename i give the readmes already exists the number i assign to the readme will simply increase in value until a free number is available and the readme can successfully be created without any conflicts..

If someone can make sure there is no delete error message on readmes now then i will again update the first post archive with this test version.

cheers.

[DisasterIncarna]

provided the features available at present are in a working bugfree(ish) condition i can concentrate on adding other minor features, as i am still working on my IGAME/Early startup-sequence/boot selector program i am thinking of transfering over the ability to control UHC-GUI with a joystick and arrow keys.

This originally didnt seem sensible to me for the UHC-GUI program, but i will be making some test versions to see the difference and see if it is worth it, mostly as i now own a steam deck and my modified early boot selector tool already works brilliantly using the steam deck joystick controls so it "might" be useful for UHC-GUI as well.

if theres too much bloat for a feature like this i might just keep the joystick enabled version for my own use, not sure just yet.

heres what i mean by my igame/boot sequence tool, this is a skip-ahead video of my launcher working first in workbench mode, then you get a black screen as i reboot and it launches in early boot as i hold my RMB and it starts in a minimised window mode, its working in the vid with mouse, but my update to it is fully joystick/arrow key enabled and i can launch all my titles on the steam deck this way with ease, i even have my WHDLOAD Quiet key mapped to the deck so its pretty seamless stuff.

hmm, video has time index in the link but doesnt skip ahead for me? weird, nm, skip to 3:24 or so.

[ Show youtube player ]