Plugin Command Line Tool

[Virgil Sovereign]

Chris : An idle thought: Is there even the remotest possibility of getting a command line tool for compiling a manifest (plus images) into a .pbp file? It wouldn't have to be pretty. Just something to cut out the need for the build UI if desired.

I ask for several reasons:

1. such a tool would obviate the need for any number of esoteric and not-so-esoteric features in the build UI (such as sortable tabs, which was already mentioned)
   
2. the tool would be a considerable help in streamlining plugin development. For example, I'm finding that many of my plugins use a common code base and that any changes I make to the base have to be manually propagated to every plugin. I also have plugins like VDice and CondX that come in multiple pre-configured "flavours" that need to be redundantly updated every time I make a change. A CL tool would make code maintenance much easier.
   
3. it's conceivable that you already have such a tool (or at least code that could be turned into one in short order)
   

Thoughts on this becoming a reality?

Another possibility: Would you (Proboards) consider publishing the spec for .pbp files? I'll happily write my own tool for building a .pbp from a JSON source and make it available to other developers.

Thanks for your input.

[P̌̓aͧś̀t̀u͒le͆o͂2̀3̃̓]

That's very true. You could probably write something in a C language within a day or two.

[Chris]

Mar 22, 2016 4:12:37 GMT -8 Virgil Sovereign said:

Chris : An idle thought: Is there even the remotest possibility of getting a command line tool for compiling a manifest (plus images) into a .pbp file? It wouldn't have to be pretty. Just something to cut out the need for the build UI if desired.

I ask for several reasons:

1. such a tool would obviate the need for any number of esoteric and not-so-esoteric features in the build UI (such as sortable tabs, which was already mentioned)
   
2. the tool would be a considerable help in streamlining plugin development. For example, I'm finding that many of my plugins use a common code base and that any changes I make to the base have to be manually propagated to every plugin. I also have plugins like VDice and CondX that come in multiple pre-configured "flavours" that need to be redundantly updated every time I make a change. A CL tool would make code maintenance much easier.
   
3. it's conceivable that you already have such a tool (or at least code that could be turned into one in short order)
   

Thoughts on this becoming a reality?

Another possibility: Would you (Proboards) consider publishing the spec for .pbp files? I'll happily write my own tool for building a .pbp from a JSON source and make it available to other developers.

Thanks for your input.

Virgil Sovereign , I thought about building my own personal plugin builder back in the V5 beta days but never got around to it as is the case with most of my pinned tasks nowadays. I will need to consult the higher-ups however before I divulge info that might be detrimental to where Proboards may want to take this. I have nothing but a intuition here, but I suspect the specs will be getting a once-over to harden it with the upcoming "paid plugins" feature which would make any labor put into an obsolete spec fruitless. Stay tuned for further developments...

[Chris]

Virgil Sovereign , as I suspected, the specs will be changed with the introduction of paid plugins. This means the current spec might be retired or it could simply mean both specs could coexist with PBP1 still used for free/legacy plugins and PBP2 for paid but any effort put into PBP1 would be gambling on the latter scenario.

If you still wish to pursue the idea then I can tell you that a *.pbp file is simply a *.gz file with the addition of a 6 byte header of "PBP1>>". Remove that header then any app that can understand gzip (using deflate) should be able to open it. It will of course be a JSON structure which should be self-documenting once you've got it uncompressed.

[P̌̓aͧś̀t̀u͒le͆o͂2̀3̃̓]

Chris
Thats pretty simple. You sure you want this information out there? I guess its technically legacy anyway....

[Virgil Sovereign]

Mar 26, 2016 17:56:04 GMT -8 Chris said:

Virgil Sovereign , as I suspected, the specs will be changed with the introduction of paid plugins. This means the current spec might be retired or it could simply mean both specs could coexist with PBP1 still used for free/legacy plugins and PBP2 for paid but any effort put into PBP1 would be gambling on the latter scenario.

If you still wish to pursue the idea then I can tell you that a *.pbp file is simply a *.gz file with the addition of a 6 byte header of "PBP1>>". Remove that header then any app that can understand gzip (using deflate) should be able to open it. It will of course be a JSON structure which should be self-documenting once you've got it uncompressed.

Ah. Easy enough to handle. Many thanks.

[Lynx]

** whistles and walks in the other direction, as this is WAY over my head **

[Ulises]

Chris Quick question as I'm super curious: how were you able to figure out that .pbp files were essentially .gz files?

Actually, thinking about it a little more, it makes sense.

[Peter]

Ulises,

It's all about that magic number.

[Chris]

Apr 3, 2016 15:31:32 GMT -8 Ulises said:

Chris Quick question as I'm super curious: how were you able to figure out that .pbp files were essentially .gz files?

Actually, thinking about it a little more, it makes sense.

Yeah, once you reason it out then it makes sense plus I once had a weird fascination with hex editors and studying file type headers. It might also be that Pat may have mentioned it in passing during an alpha introduction.

[Ulises]

Yeah, I'm still a student in this stuff and this isn't one of the things they teach us. Or maybe they will in later classes. I still think this idea is cool even if it may not come to fruition.

[Peter]

Ulises ,

Not sure if you understood my previous post, maybe I should have gone into more detail.

A magic number (or you can call it a signature), is basically a small amount of data that can be used to identify the type of file. I went though a phase of using hex editors, and because of using them years ago, I learned about these magic numbers in the header of files. There are lists out there that tell you which magic number (aka signature) belongs to which file extension.





Magic number (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gzip)...



JSON for plugin...

[Former Member]

I'm working on a node CLI tool for this

The file header is actually 16bytes long as
proboards does not use the checksum or additional fields

Header
{
 signature                // Uint32 - 4bytes
 unknown                  // Uint16 - 2bytes
 gzipsignature            // uint16 - 2bytes
 gzipcompression          // int8   - 1byte
 gzipflags                // int8   - 1byte
 gziplastmodified         // int32  - 4bytes
 gzipcompressionflags     // int8   - 1byte
 gzipoperatingsys         // int8   - 1byte


I know proboards does not use checksum or additional fields
by checking the flags

gzipflags
{
 FTEXT : gzipflags >> 0x01 ? 1 : 0,     // treat as text instead of binary
 FHCRC : gzipflags >> 0x02 ? 1 : 0,     // checksum flag
 FEXTRA: gzipflags >> 0x04 ? 1 : 0,     // extra fields flag
 FNAME : gzipflags >> 0x08 ? 1 : 0,     // original name
 FCOMMENT: gzipflags >> 0x10 ? 1 : 0,   // contains comments
 RESERVED1: gzipflags >> 0x20 ? 1 : 0,  // must be set to zero
 RESERVED2: gzipflags >> 0x40 ? 1 : 0,  // must be set to zero
 RESERVED3: gzipflags >> 0x80 ? 1 : 0,  // must be set to zero


gzipcompressionflags
{
  slow :  gzipcompressionflags >> 0x02 ? 1 : 0
  fast :  gzipcompressionflags >> 0x04 ? 1 : 0
}

The file contains footer, where the checksum is used if the flag is set, the last 8bytes
Footer
{
    checksum :                   4bytes
    uncompressedDataSize :  4bytes
}

[Peter]

Oct 9, 2016 9:31:17 GMT -8 @synthtec said:

Peter

The file header is actually 16bytes long

Not sure why you are tagging me pointing that out. My post was about magic numbers.

[Former Member]

You showed the first few bytes then showed the json data
I was just pointing it out for those interested that there was more involved.

untagged you.