mirror of
https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress.git
synced 2024-12-22 05:29:43 +00:00
314 lines
14 KiB
HTML
314 lines
14 KiB
HTML
<html>
|
|
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
|
|
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
|
|
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
|
|
<title>CiderPress Source README</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
|
|
<body>
|
|
<h1>CiderPress Source README</h1>
|
|
Release notes for v3.0.0<br>
|
|
Last updated: 25-Mar-2007
|
|
|
|
<h2>Contents:</h2>
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><a href="#intro">What's Ciderpress?</a>
|
|
<li><a href="#build">Building the Sources</a>
|
|
<li><a href="#notes">Source Notes</a>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<hr>
|
|
<h2><a name="intro">What's CiderPress?</a></h2>
|
|
<p>CiderPress is a Windows utility for manipulating Apple II disk images
|
|
and file archives. It supports all major disk and archive formats used
|
|
on the Apple II and by Apple II emulators.
|
|
<p>CiderPress was sold by faddenSoft, LLC as a shareware product for about four
|
|
years, starting in March 2003.
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3>Why Bother?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>Back in 2002 I decided it was time to learn how to write an application for
|
|
Microsoft Windows. I had been a professional software engineer for many
|
|
years -- including 2.5 years at Microsoft! -- but had never written a
|
|
Windows program more complex than "Hello, world!".
|
|
|
|
<p>I decided to write a Windows version of GS/ShrinkIt. I had already written
|
|
NufxLib, which handled all of the ShrinkIt stuff, so I could focus
|
|
on writing the Windows user interface code.
|
|
|
|
<p>Somewhere in the early stages of the project, it occurred to me that a
|
|
disk image isn't substantially different from a file archive. They're
|
|
both just collections of files laid out in a well-defined manner. The
|
|
decision to handle disk images as well as ShrinkIt archives seemed like
|
|
a simple improvement at the time. The rest is history.
|
|
|
|
<p>CiderPress has allowed me to explore a variety of interesting technologies.
|
|
It has five different ways of reading a block from physical media, depending
|
|
on your operating system and what sort of device you're reading from. I
|
|
was able to take what I learned from a digital signal processing textbook
|
|
and apply it to a real-world problem (decoding Apple II cassette data). It
|
|
is also my first Shareware product, not to mention the initial product of
|
|
my first small business venture (faddenSoft, LLC).
|
|
|
|
<p>I could have written other things. No doubt they would have made more money.
|
|
CiderPress is something that I find very useful, however, in the pursuit of
|
|
my Apple II hobby.
|
|
|
|
<p>Above all, this has been a labor of love. I have tried to get the details
|
|
right, because in the end it's the little things that mean the difference
|
|
between "good" and merely "good enough".</p>
|
|
|
|
<h3>License</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>The source code to CiderPress is being made available under the BSD license:</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><code>
|
|
Copyright (c) 2007, FaddenSoft, LLC<br>
|
|
All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
<p>Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
|
|
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li> Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
|
|
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
|
|
<li> Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
|
|
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
|
|
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
|
|
<li> Neither the name of FaddenSoft, LLC nor the
|
|
names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
|
|
derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY FaddenSoft, LLC ``AS IS'' AND ANY
|
|
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
|
|
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
|
|
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL FaddenSoft, LLC BE LIABLE FOR ANY
|
|
DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
|
|
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
|
|
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
|
|
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
|
|
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
|
|
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
|
|
</code></blockquote>
|
|
CiderPress requires three other libraries, all of which are included as either
|
|
source or binaries:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>NufxLib, also available under the BSD license.
|
|
<li>Zlib, available under the Zlib license.
|
|
<li>libhfs, available under the GPL license.
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>The license allows you to do a great many things. For example, you could
|
|
take the source code to CiderPress, compile it, and sell it. I'm not sure why
|
|
anyone would buy it, but you're legally allowed to do so, as long as you retain
|
|
the appropriate copyright notice.</p>
|
|
<p>If you retain libhfs, any changes you make to any part of CiderPress must
|
|
be made available, due to the "viral" nature of the GPL license. If this is
|
|
not acceptable, you can remove HFS disk image support from CiderPress (look for
|
|
"EXCISE_GPL_CODE" in DiskImg.h).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<hr>
|
|
<h2><a name="build">Building the Sources</a></h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>How to build your own copy of CiderPress.
|
|
|
|
<h3>Windows</h3>
|
|
<p>The sources are distributed with the necessary project/solution files for
|
|
Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2003. All you
|
|
really need is the C++ compiler. The free or student editions of the
|
|
compilers will probably work.
|
|
<p>I usually work on CiderPress in Visual C++ 6.0,
|
|
and use that when building for distribution. I chose to stick with 6.0 for
|
|
CiderPress because you need an additional MSVC DLL when you build with
|
|
2003. Also, the newer tools cause the newer file selection dialogs to be
|
|
used, and the custom dialog code gets all wonky.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>In 6.0, you need to select "app" as the build target (Build->Set
|
|
active configuration), and hit F7. This will build everything except MDC,
|
|
which you can then build by selecting "mdc" and hitting F7. You
|
|
can also configure a batch build. In 2003 just select "build
|
|
solution". The necessary prebuilt libraries should be there for both
|
|
"debug" and "release" builds. (You can tell how it has
|
|
been built by looking at the version string in the About box.)</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>When the build completes, the necessary DLLs are copied around so you can
|
|
execute the binary by launching it within Visual Studio (hit F5). You will
|
|
get a warning about not being able to find the NiftyList data file unless you
|
|
copy that from "DIST" into the app source directory.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The distribution comes with prebuilt versions of NufxLib2 and zlib in DLL
|
|
form. If you like, you can download and compile your own.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>There are two things you can't create with the standard tools:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>The help text was created with HelpMatic Pro. The source file is in a
|
|
proprietary format. It should probably be converted to HTML Help.</li>
|
|
<li>The installation packages are created with DeployMaster. The
|
|
".deploy" file specifies how the package is built. </li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>Compiled help files are included, so you can still generate a new version of
|
|
CiderPress even if you can't update the help. You don't strictly need the installer either, though it is
|
|
quite handy, and the uninstaller will clean up the registry entries CiderPress
|
|
creates.</p>
|
|
<h3>Linux</h3>
|
|
<p>The "linux" directory has a few command-line utilities and a simple
|
|
makefile. It will build the diskimg and HFS libraries, then the sample utilities:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><code>getfile disk-image filename</code> -- extract a file from a disk
|
|
image. The file is written to stdout.</li>
|
|
<li><code>makedisk {dos|prodos|pascal} size image-filename.po file1 ...</code>
|
|
-- create a new disk image, with the specified size and format, and copy the
|
|
specified files onto it.</li>
|
|
<li><code>mdc file1 ...</code> -- this is equivalent to the MDC application
|
|
for Windows. It recursively scans all files and directories specified,
|
|
displaying the contents of any disk images it finds.</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>This are mostly intended for testing and illustration of the interfaces, but
|
|
they can be useful as well. Some other code is also provided:</p>
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><code>iconv infile outfile</code> -- convert an image from one format to
|
|
another. This was used for testing.</li>
|
|
<li><code>packddd infile outfile</code> -- the DDD code was originally
|
|
developed under Linux. This code is here for historical reasons.</li>
|
|
<li><code>sstasm part1 part2</code> -- the SST re-assembly code was originally
|
|
developed under Linux. The code is here for historical reasons.</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The "prebuilt" directory has a pre-built copy of NufxLib, so you
|
|
don't have to build your own.</p>
|
|
<p>If you're planning to hack on this stuff, use "make depend" before
|
|
"make" to fill in the dependencies.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<hr>
|
|
<h2><a name="notes">Source Notes</a></h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>Some notes on what you'll find in the various directories.
|
|
|
|
<h3>Main Application</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>This is highly Windows-centric. My goal was to learn how to write a
|
|
Windows application, so I made no pretense at portability. For better or
|
|
worse, I avoided the Visual Studio "wizards" for the dialogs.
|
|
|
|
<p>Much of the user interface text is in the resource file. Much is not,
|
|
especially when it comes to error messages. This will need to be addressed
|
|
if internationalization is attempted.
|
|
|
|
<p>It may be possible to convert this for use
|
|
with wxWidgets, which uses an MFC-like structure, and runs on Mac and Linux as
|
|
well. The greatest barrier to
|
|
entry is probably the heavy reliance on the Rich Edit control. Despite
|
|
its bug-ridden history, the Rich Edit control allowed me to let Windows
|
|
deal with a lot of text formatting and image display stuff.
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3>MDC Application</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>MDC (Multi-Disk Catalog) was written as a simple demonstration of the value of having the DiskImg
|
|
code in a DLL instead of meshed with the main application. There's not
|
|
much to it, and it hasn't changed substantially since it was first written.
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3>DiskImg Library</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>This library provides access to disk images. It automatically handles a
|
|
wide variety of formats.
|
|
|
|
<p>This library can be built under Linux or Windows. One of my key motivations
|
|
for making it work under Linux was the availability of "valgrind". Similar
|
|
tools for Windows usually very expensive or inferior (or both).
|
|
|
|
<p>The basic classes, defined in DiskImg.h, are:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>DiskImg. This represents a single disk image, which may have
|
|
sub-images. Operations on a DiskImg are roughly equivalent to a device
|
|
driver: you can read and write blocks, detect image formats, and create new
|
|
images.</li>
|
|
<li>DiskFS. Paired with a DiskImg, this is roughly equivalent to a GS/OS
|
|
FST (FileSystem Translator). You can perform file operations like
|
|
rename and delete, format disks, see how much space is available, and search
|
|
for sub-volumes.</li>
|
|
<li>A2File. Represents a file on a DiskFS. This holds the file's
|
|
name, attributes, track/sector or block lists, and provides a call to open a
|
|
file.</li>
|
|
<li>A2FileDescr. Represents an open file. You can read or write
|
|
data.</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>Sub-classes are defined in DiskImgDetail.h. Most applications won't
|
|
need to access this header file. Each Apple II filesystem defines
|
|
sub-classes of DiskFS, A2File, and A2FileDescr.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>In an ideal world, the code would mimic the GS/OS file operations. In
|
|
practice, CiderPress didn't need the full range of capabilities, so the
|
|
functions have some basic limitations:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>On ProDOS and HFS, you can only open one fork at a time. This allowed me
|
|
to use simpler data structures.
|
|
<li>Files are expected to be written in one large chunk. This reduced the
|
|
complexity of the task enormously, because there's so much less that can
|
|
go wrong.
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>Some things that can be improved:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>The overall structure of the filesystem handlers evolved over time. There
|
|
is some amount of redundancy that could be factored out.
|
|
<li>The API, especially in DiskImg, could probably be simplified.
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The library depends on NufxLib and zlib for access to compressed images.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3>Reformat Library</h3>
|
|
<p>This is probably the most "fun" component of CiderPress. It converts Apple II files
|
|
to more easily accessible Windows equivalents.
|
|
|
|
<p>Start in Reformat.h and ReformatBase.h. There are two basic kinds of
|
|
reformatter: text and graphics. Everything else is a sub-class of one of the
|
|
two basic types.
|
|
|
|
<p>The general idea is to allow the reformatter to decide whether or not it is
|
|
capable of reformatting a file. To this end, the file type information and
|
|
file contents are presented to the "examine" function of each reformatter in
|
|
turn. The level of confidence is specified in a range. If it's better than
|
|
"no", it is presented to the user as an option, ordered by the strength of its
|
|
convictions. If chosen, the "process" function is called to convert the data.
|
|
|
|
<p>Bear in mind that reformatters may be disabled from the preferences menu.
|
|
Also, when extracting files for easy access in Windows, the "best"
|
|
reformatter is employed by the extraction code.<p>Most of the code should be portable, though some of it uses the MFC CString class.
|
|
This could probably be altered to use STL strings or plain.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3>Util Library</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>Miscellaneous utility functions.
|
|
|
|
<p>For a good time, look at SelectFilesDialog.cpp.
|
|
|
|
<p>To enable debug logging for one of the applications, define _DEBUG_LOG in
|
|
MyDebug.h in this library. You will see "_DEBUG_LOG" in the version string
|
|
in the About box when this is defined. The log is written to C:\cplog.txt.
|
|
An existing log file will be appended to if the previous log was written to
|
|
less than 8 hours ago.</p>
|
|
|
|
<hr>
|
|
<p>Enjoy!</p>
|
|
<address>Andy McFadden</address>
|
|
</body>
|
|
|
|
</html>
|