appbrowser.tcz

[MakodFilu]

I use the Appbrowser a lot to load local tcz extensions, but I am realizing I do that because I neither backup nor setup a properly made OnDemand sub-menu.

So it struck to me, that the Apps icon in wbar does not really need for Appbrowser to be there, locally stored. I think there are at least three possible scenarios in which you'll find yourself:

a) You are new to TinyCore and have not downloaded any App yet. You need web access to download some, so the Apps icon just need to call tce-load -w -i appbrowser.tcz and then launch it if it does not launch itself after installing.

b) You already have a tce dir somewhere with local apps. Some already installed via OnBoot.lst or any alternate.lst, but you just need to load a locally stored app and you don't have internet access right now, so you just use the OnDemand sub-menu.

c) You have booted with base norestore cheat codes. You already have stored apps and already have Set TCE drive. Either you restore your backup to get your customized OnDemand sub-menu or Set TCE drive auto-magically does tce-load -i $TCEDIR/appbrowser.tcz for you if present. Or you use the Apps icon, which means you behave as in the a) case.

Why running through all this effort? Because:

a) If you make the Appbrowser independent of the TinyCore version, you can fix Appbrowser bugs without releasing a new TC version and without forcing the users to upgrade.

b) You can easily introduce fixes for users using older TinyCore versions.

c) Last but not least, size of Appbrowser is not really an issue... now. But making it a standard .tcz extension allows it to grow, improve and be beautified without affecting TinyCore footprint.

[MakodFilu]

I almost forgot:

d) Because if it doesn't really need to be in core, it doesn't need to be in core.

[curaga]

I'll just note that appbrowser is only the gui, most functionality is in the scripts. If there's need for a different gui, beautified, improved or whatever, it can be done as an extension (see appbrowser-cli for example).

[MakodFilu]

I heard there was something like a daemon to "fix" the .tcz packages for older versions that still need those to be called .tczl or .tczm to perform certain actions.

If such situation happens again in the future, solving it via new package wouldn't be easier?

OTOH, I agree that most functionality is in the CLI tce-load. Then again, the wbar button could be made to check if there is a newer version of tce-load as well.