Suggestions for DriveMan ( replacement for HotPup ).

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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sunburnt
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Suggestions for DriveMan ( replacement for HotPup ).

#1 Post by sunburnt »

I`ve been slowly making a replacement for HotPup ( I don`t care for it much ).
Gripes:
I dislike clutter on my desktop, and it doesn`t position the icons very well.
It bugs you every time you want it to simply give you a ROX-Filer window.
And when plugging in a USB, it should mount and unmount automatically.

I`ve made a simple GUI for fixed drive management, and the settings GUI
controls auto-drive for auto. mounting and unmounting of removable media.

Qs I have are: The pix shows 2 GUIs, 1 with a ListBox and one with a TableBox.
The TableBox is slightly bigger than the ListBox, I myself hate wasted space...
Shown also is the Settings GUI, if there are any suggestions for it, or anything...
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000_DriveMan_list-table-settings.png
Trying to get community feedback for interest, suggestions, and improvements.
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puppyluvr
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#2 Post by puppyluvr »

:D I like it...I think the tablebox one is easier to "get"
What does "BootMount" do
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sunburnt
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#3 Post by sunburnt »

Hi puppyluvr; Thanks for the help with the " show on all desktops " thing, too obvious...
Yeah... The TableBox is nicer and cleaner looking, it`s just a little taller is all.
A cool thing is you can window-shade it in an upper corner and it`s almost gone.

The [ Boot Mt ] button sets the selected device ( partition ) to mount at bootup.
As long as a GUI shows a given item, you may as well be able to do everything with it.

I`m considering having it be able to check the partition`s file system. What do you think ?
And what about having a drive and partition [ Info ] button to give detailed device data ?

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sunburnt
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#4 Post by sunburnt »

Here`s the latest pix of the DriveMan GUI and the Settings GUI.
It will now check the partitions on fixed media, it doesn`t show removable media.
Last edited by sunburnt on Thu 11 Mar 2010, 21:52, edited 1 time in total.

amigo
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#5 Post by amigo »

Can we see your code?

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8-bit
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#6 Post by 8-bit »

I noticed a Ck Drive button.
If this is for an e2fsck, make sure you include a check to see that the drive is not mounted as there are supposed to be problems with trying to check a mounted drive.

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sunburnt
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#7 Post by sunburnt »

amigo; I`ll post it when I get the startup position code working properly.

8-bit; Already been done... It asks if you want to un-mount the partition.

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technosaurus
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#8 Post by technosaurus »

Think you might want to integrate some dd tricks

dd if=/dev/dvd of=dvd.iso # for dvd
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=cd.iso # for cdrom
dd if=/dev/scd0 of=cd.iso # if cdrom is scsi
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/home/sam/floppy.bin #make a floppy image
dd if=/home/sam/floppy.bin of=/dev/fd0 #write image to floppy
dd if=/dev/sda of=/home/sam/MBR.image bs=446 count=1 #backup MBR
dd of=/dev/sda if=/home/sam/MBR.image bs=446 count=1 #restore MBR
dd if=/dev/urandom of=afile bs=3769 count=1 conv=notrunc #clean a file

http://www.rlogix.com/node/6#more dd tricks including remote backup and restore over ssh, recover damaged cd/dvd and more
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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technosaurus
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#9 Post by technosaurus »

just some critique on your widget selection - maybe others disagree?

Max drive list - there is a widget that allows you to select a number using small up/down arrows in gtk2 called spinbutton (it is available in xdialog, but not sure about gtkdialog)

all of the rest could be a simple checkbox

can't tell by your screenies but you may want to use tooltips to describe what the settings mean, or at least have a help button

these are in the gtkdialog tips thread in programming
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=38608
(net setup has a help menu example)
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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sunburnt
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#10 Post by sunburnt »

technosaurus; Yeah, I`ve been thinking about having it give drive and partition info too.
To do more stuff like this I think another GUI would be good instead of bloating the main GUI.
Also Auto-Drive does removable drives, DriveMan doesn`t, so another GUI could do it all.
### Extra tricks for it to do so far:
1) Check partition for errors and fix.
2) Drive and partition info display.
3) Mirror a drive partition.
4) Backup and restore drive partition.
5) Backup and restore boot partition.
6) Make an ISO file from CD-DVD.
7) Recover a CD-DVD to an ISO file.
### Any other suggestions?
Yep, I thought about using ToolTips for the main GUI and the Settings GUI could be smaller if the TextBoxes weren`t needed.
I can`t get CheckBoxes to work properly the way I do gtkDialog, it`s almost the same...
The app. is so simple so far that a help button is kinda overkill.
Having it do heavy stuff that gparted does is a waste of effort.

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sunburnt
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#11 Post by sunburnt »

amigo, and anyone else... Here`s the app. so far.

If you want driveman in the path, a link must be made in /usr/sbin pointing to it, like this:

Code: Select all

ln -s /root/my-applications/driveman/driveman /usr/sbin/driveman
I`m thinking I`ll combine the Settings GUI data files into just one.
A separate GUI for doing extra stuff with all drives, and ToolTips is a good idea for all GUIs.

I know a lot of you ( maybe all...) won`t like my way of building GUIs with gtkDialog.
Let me explain. The GUIs and the grunt code are separate files to allow them to be maintained separately.
One file is pure shell script, and the GUIs are mostly or all gtkDialog code.
Also either file can be replaced with another file of code written in a different language.
Attachments
DriveMan_b-0.1.zip
Let me know if it works, it`s been awhile since I did any of this...
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amigo
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#12 Post by amigo »

Thanks for posting our code. Very good policy of keeping GUI code separate from main functionality. I'd suggest keeping the functionality very conservative until the main code has matured. If you are proeprly separating your code, then you shouldn't have much trouble to introduce new GUI elements with their code later on.

What I mean is this: dealing with partitions and file systems is very delicate work -you don't want ayone wiping out files/drives because of bad coding or because they have misunderstood some advance functionality. Think hard before starting to add code which is on the 'fringe' of the tools' purpose. As an example, a backup utility is not really related to managing mounts or mountable images. Creating a really good backup utility is also delicate work and will be quite complex once you add options for handling things in different ways to suit different tastes/needs. Adding such non-related or barely-related functionality should be given *lots* of thought and done deliberately without distractions from other still-evolving sections of code. My two cents...

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8-bit
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#13 Post by 8-bit »

I tried out your DriveMan without installing it and did notice one thing.
After the DM window is up listing the drives, if I click on a drive and then select the ROX button, the drive is mounted and opened with ROX.
But the list of drives in the DM window disappears and I have to go to the desktop icons or pmount to unmount it.
Also, could installation be done with a PET file?
Or does it require an specific installation script?

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sunburnt
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#14 Post by sunburnt »

8-bit; It sounds like it`s jamming up or crashing in some way, don`t know why...
It`s just 3 scripts and support files, it can be installed any way at all.
I`d hope it or something like it would be in standard Puppy releases as an option to HotPup.

The list / table GUI setup is the easiest way to do it, a panel with icons would be good also.
But smaller icons than the standard desktop ones HotPup uses. I hate big clunky icons...

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