Right-Click Tools for Puppys

[mikeslr]

Attached is a pet which will provide VanillaDpup Right-Click tools.

Edit: Attached is a pet which will provide Puppys with the Right-Click tools I've become accustomed to having,

RightClicks-Puppy.pet

(1.98 KiB) Downloaded 140 times

. The reason for the change is explained here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 281#p75281

With it installed your Right-Click pop-up Menu will offer the following:
For a folder create an SFS or making a pet.
For an SFS where ever it might be --including if you are not using a SaveFile/Folder-- and have it SFS-loaded.

The Right-Click pop-up Menu will also offer to 'Run-in-Terminal' any binary, script, and AppImage.

Although only tested under VanillaDpup's versions 9.2.18 and 9.2.19 64-bit, I expect that it should work under any VanillaDpup, Vanilla-Upup an dimkr's build of Jammy. Tested under all recent 64-Bit Puppys. The pet does not contain any binaries; so should also work under any 32 Bit Puppys.

[mikeslr]

With VanillaDpup dimkr has created a really great Puppy. It has overcome the limitations of Puppy Package Manager by incorporating both apt and synaptic. New Puppy Users familiar with other Linuxes will feel right at home. Even old-timers like me who prefer to avoid having to learn command-line arguments will appreciate synaptic.
So, why these tools?
debian, itself, and Puppy were designed to function differently. Debian, itself, expects to operate from an entire partition to itself and by now –with debian bullseye-- from a modern computer with plenty of RAM. Puppy, on the other hand, was conceived of as a light-weight portable operating system which can be co-exit with Windows and run from a computers having far less RAM. VanillaDup bridges that divide to a large extent. Indeed, VanillaDpup is not a RAM hog; and there’s even a 32-bit operating system available.
Still the differing initial conceptions of these systems have resulted in their evolving along different paths. Apt and Synaptic are far superior to PPM as they are designed to keep track of what components have been installed on YOUR computer to enable all the applications you’ve installed to function and is capable of providing from a debian version’s repository all (and only) the components needed for other applications available from that repository.
VanillaDpup continues to provide access to both debian and Puppy’s repositories if you use Puppy Package Manager. If you never have to use it, you may never have to deal with the deficiencies inherent in Puppy having to rely on other than its own repository. Chances are, however, at some point you’ll have to use Puppy Package Manager to install a light-weight application and/or the dependencies of any application. debian’s repositories may be able to provide them; but first you have to know what they are.

Puppy Package Manager, on the other hand, only knows what components debian has identified as dependencies for a system running that version of debian. Puppy, not being debian, frequently lacks some infra-structural components builders of debian applications assumed would be present. Recognizing that deficiency, radky developed ListDD, now at version 2.2, viewtopic.php?p=32260#p32260. It can be installed and used under VanillaDpup without causing a problem.

While endeavoring to provide operating systems for ‘resource-poor-by-today’s-standards’ computers, and not having a cadre of skilled technicians to create applications, puppys via its user/devs have evolved to use SFSes –load when needed, unload when not-- and AppImages, mounted only when needed. Puppy Devs do not for the most part create AppImages; and the publishers of AppImages don’t have Puppys as a target for their creations.

Users of Puppys are often refugees from Windows and ‘newbies’ to Linux in general. Windows held their hands. When apt/synaptic misses something, Linux often expects them to use the command line to find out what hardware and core software components make up their computing-system. Perhaps debian has a tool providing a GUI for such investigation. I doubt it is as comprehensive as radky’s Pupsys-Info, available here, https://www.smokey01.com/radky/PupMates.html. It also can be installed.

Some light-weigh applications --for example the excellent masterpdfeditor version 4-- will function under VanillaDpup, but only when qt4 libraries are present or provided. debian no longer supports qt4; you can’t use apt/synaptic to get those dependencies. The package which contains them may not be a ‘.deb’ or pet or may include libraries you don’t need. So you’ll have to unpack the package and manually copy the needed libraries. JakeSFR’s UExtract, viewtopic.php?p=3263#p3263 can decompress almost any package.

Once you’ve figured out what you need you may want to preserve files for the next time, or the next version of VanillaDpup. JakeSFR’s packit, viewtopic.php?t=6868 can create any of the following types of packages:
Pass_1: tar, cpio, mkisofs, mke2fs, mksquashfs
Pass_2: 7z/7za/7zz/7zzs/7zr, bzip2, gzip, lz4, lzip, lzma, lzop, pigz, rar, xz, zip, zstd

Two other methods of preserving (and offering to others) the product of your labors are to create a pet or an SFS. VanillaDup already includes the files needed to create an SFS. But unlike other Puppys you can’t just Right-Click a folder and select dir2sfs. I’m not sure how it could be used; perhaps by entering a complex argument into a terminal? The the pet attached to the OP provides VanillaDpup with the Right-Click folder dir2sfs capability.

Although VanillaDpup includes a script for dir2pet, it lacks the rox-app such script calls. It also lackes the ‘makepet’ script which could directly initiate a GUI to create a pet. In the pet attached to the OP I chose the simpler to enable method of including the makepet script and adding it as an option when you Right-Click a folder.

ListDD can not be used to find out why an AppImage doesn’t work; AppImages aren’t binaries. You could extract a recalcitrant AppImage, then use ListDD to examine its binaries. But sometimes there’s an easier way: try to run it in a terminal and read the terminal output. The pet attached to the OP adds Run-in-terminal as a Right-Click option for AppImages –even those without the ‘.AppImage’ suffix. Run-in-terminal is also a Right-Click option for any binary and any bash-script.

VanillaDpup provides SFS-Load (on the fly). But it can only be started via Menu>Setup>SFS load and only if the SFS is on your Home-Partition. The pet attached to the OP enables you to SFS-load an SFS where ever it is, and even if you haven’t yet created a SaveFile/Folder so don’t have a Home-partition.

My favorite Screen capture application is TAS (Take-a-Shot) by JakeSFR, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=84528. It, however, requires ffmpeg which is not built-into VanillaDup. Apt/Synaptic can provide that. But VanillaDpup does have mtPaint built-in and years ago 01micko created an application that would use it to create a screenshot. I packaged it as a pet you can obtain here, mtpaintsnapshot-2.014 pet viewtopic.php?p=2487&sid=c68a4bc4a32014 ... 8ac8#p2487

With inclusion of the aforementioned tools, VanillaDpup AFAIK has all the User-friendly tools of debian bulls-eye, and all the user-friendly capabilities of other Puppies.

However, I don’t recommend the recommend ‘fleshing-out’ your ‘Vanilla Pup’ sometimes using pets and other times using apt/synaptic. The strength of apt/synaptic is that they will know every component built into the ‘Vanilla Pup’ and every component of every application you install using them. But they won’t know anything about what Puppy Package Manager does.

Each of the tools mentioned in this post consists of bash-scripts or Rox-Apps employing bash-scripts (and maybe some pngs). But other pet may include binaries and libraries. Those may conflict with the binaries and libraries built-in to a ‘Vanilla Pup’ or installed via apt/synaptic. Worse, they may over-write them and Uninstalling a Pet may break an ‘apt/synaptic’ application which still ‘thinks’ the binary or library is present.

I suggest that you make us of amethyst’s Save2SFS module in nicOS-Utility-Suite https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 307#p69307. Early on, or later by booting ‘pfix=ram’, you can use that module to create either an adrv.sfs and/or ydrv.sfs. Vanilla Pups will load such file-systems into RAM on boot-up: so they’ll be part of your system. But their contents will not be part of your SaveFile/Folder. Being READ-ONLY, PPM can not permanently remove their contents. But the Save2SFS module can be run again to do update those file-systems; and the Suite’s contains an SFS editor among its Right-Click options.

[amethyst]

But VanillaDpup does have mtPaint built-in and years ago 01micko created an application that would use it to create a screenshot. I packaged it as a pet you can obtain here

Just a mention: mtpaint actually has this function builtin. Start mtpaint > File > New > Grab Screenshot > Create > Save As OR you can create a tray button with mtpaint -s as the command OR set up a keyboard shortcut.

[mikeslr]

@ amethyst,

True and mtPaint has other options such as just pressing the 'PrtScn' Key. But what I liked about 01micko's script was that the GUI it presents gives you a choice of delaying. Handy if you're trying to capture something you have to click on or open for it to appear.

mtpaintsnapshot's GUI.png (16.68 KiB) Viewed 1390 times

Usually when I want to take a screenshot, I want to do it NOW; not have to try to remember commands, or take my hands off the mouse or key-board rest position. As I wrote, my favorite is TAS. I assign it a Launcher on my task-bar. But I can also do the same with mtpaintsnapshot. Although I can create a Launcher with the mtpaint -s command, 01micko has just done it better than I could.

[amethyst]

To give 10 seconds time before snapshot is taken:

Code: Select all

sleep 10 && mtpaint -s

or you can make a little dialog popup with time and more user options to choose from (admittedly the latter would involve some extra coding). Actually, I'm going to do one for personal use sometime and see what extra options I can come up with, just for the fun of it...
TAS is great though, especially the region option is very cool.

[mikeslr]

The pet, now named RightClicks-Puppy, is exactly the same as I previously provided. The change in name is to make it clear that it will provide RightClick options to ALL puppies, not just VanillaDpup. That change reflects what AFAICT may be a change in what woofing a Puppy provides, and perhaps a change in its orientation.

Since my publication of the pet on October 15, 2022, I've had occasion to explore --as they were published- several iterations of S15Pup and several iterations of Fossapup64-9.6, new versions of VoidPup, and Quickpup. I've also woofed a couple Puppys myself. None have included ALL the Right-Click options I've grown accustomed to having available. With the possible exceptions of Quickpup, and recent iterations of Fossapup64-9.6, ALL have included NONE OF the Right-Click options I'm accustomed to having.

From the posts appearing on the Fossaspup64-9.6 development thread the impression I have is that post woof-production a lot of manual modifications take place before publishing an ISO. In short, you can not expect woofed Puppys to provide Right-Click options OOTB. Hence the need for this pet -- and others I discussed here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 514#p69514-- if you are not going to rely exclusively upon what can both be installed and run OOTB from 'Major distro' repositories, or upon what Puppy fans make available.

I am not a coder. Please feel free to modify this pet. Note that it is small enough to be included as an attachment. I think any modified versions will also be. See my previous post regarding SFS-Load and 'make-pet'. Although 'make-pet' performs exactly the same operation as 'Create a pet', the latter is nicer looking. Some recent Puppys already provide Right-Click SFS-Load on the fly displaying a nice icon. The version in the pet doesn't and would be superfluous. I think I included all relevant 'Run in Terminal' options, I may be mistaken. And I may have missed some Right-Click option you are accustomed to having but I've never used.

[MochiMoppel]

My favorite Screen capture application is TAS (Take-a-Shot) by JakeSFR, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=84528. It, however, requires ffmpeg which is not built-into VanillaDup.

Requires ffmpeg or avconv. VanillaDup includes none of them?