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Offline patrikTopic starter

New UHC Tools release
« on: December 18, 2019, 08:09:02 PM »
UHC Tools has been around for a while now, but I don't think that many people know about it.

In short it is a collection of utilities and scripts to make your Amiga more powerful. Most parts of UHC Tools require a network or internet connection to do this.

The main feature is what we call the searchers. The most popular searchers are aminetsearch, fishsearch, modlandsearch and whdloadsearch, but there are more. Each searcher generally consist of a search script, an extract script and a readme script, but some have more.

To give an example, lets say you are looking for the latest SysInfo version on aminet. Then you can use aminetsearch like this:

8.Ram Disk:> aminetsearch sysinfo
# Filename            Path      Size Description
0 SysInfo101.lha      comm/cnet   6K SysInfo V1.01 Shows info system
1 Sysinfo_Amiplug.lha comm/irc    7K Plugin for AmIRC to show system specs.
2 SysInfo_Oberon.lha  dev/obero  16K AO Interface for SysInfo.library v1.30
3 SysInfo.lha         util/moni  53K Classic Amiga System Information Program
4 SysInfo40_noFPU.lha util/moni   1K No FPU version of SysInfo 4.0
5 batsi.lha           util/moni   4K Add your expansion boards to SysInfo


The important thing to note is the leftmost index number, which is then used with aminetreadme to read the more detailed description, or together with aminetextract to download and extract the archive:

8.Ram Disk:> aminetextract 3
Downloading de.aminet.net/aminet/util/moni/SysInfo.lha
Receiving file: 0% - [oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo] - 100% (52.93kB)
Extracting SysInfo.lha to Ram Disk:
8.Ram Disk:> list sysinfo#?
SysInfo                      Dir ----rwed Today     20:55:16
SysInfo.info                 740 ----rwed 14-Aug-19 21:53:10
1 file - 1 directory - 4 blocks used


So very quick and easy to search, read readmes, make a decision and then the download and extract is done in one operation.

There are also other very useful utilities, like SynergyClient which makes it possible to control your Amiga keyboard and mouse input from another computer, like the Amiga was one of its screens.

UHC Tools is available for AmigaOS 2.04+, MorphOS 1.4+, AmigaOS4+ and AROS i386.

Details on how to install it and what exactly is included can be found at http://uhc.driar.se/ or http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/UHCTools.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2019, 08:10:15 PM by patrik »
 
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Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2019, 09:52:51 AM »
One small request, similar to the one I had before about supporting $http_proxy for aget... I presume UHCSearch also only talks http? Could UHCSearch also support $http_proxy?
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline dschallock

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2019, 10:38:00 PM »
This is awesome.  Thank you for working on this project.  I think its important for Amiga users in 2019/2020 that use their amiga's on the internet, to have new ways of accessing information and data from the web beyond just web browsers.  I am super thankful for the latest version of ibrowse and it is a fantastic piece of software and I bought the new version, but coders writing new apps that are tailored for the Amiga and allow people to access more from the net through those specific programs is a great thing.
Has anyone thought about making a GUI front end for these tools?
 

Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2019, 09:25:30 AM »
Yes, even before UHCTools I had some scripts that essentially built an amiga guide interface to Aminet, but I was “cheating” by using rsh+zsh-function for doing the “aminet2guide” parsing/conversion on a linux system, saving time and resources on the Amiga. When I became aware of UHCTools I rewrote my scripts to use UHCTools and do the conversion to amigaguide on the Amiga, quick&dirty, using ThoR’s SED... it should really be done just using arexx though :)

The “obstacles” for my amigaguide interface are...
* lack of OS standard RequestString for getting user input (most importantly to do search) - there are a bunch of them, all with different syntax, all relying on reqtools.library (sigh!) and there is no way to use Multiview’s built-in search as it is not programmable (quadrupled sigh!)
* the aget program in UHCTools only has a progress bar for terminal console, no “GUI” progressbar.

It’s been a while since I worked on it, but I should really “appify” what I have and just make it available for others to hack on :)

And yes - thanks a lot to the UHCTools team - awesome project!
« Last Edit: December 20, 2019, 10:59:56 AM by kolla »
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline patrikTopic starter

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2019, 04:24:33 PM »
@kolla:

UHCSearch does not use http. The protocol used is much simpler and consistent when compared to http, but it is a request/response protocol. It is a possible future change though as there is at least one undeniable benefit of using http that cannot be disregarded - outgoing connections to port 80 is generally never blocked in anyones firewall.

It should be possible to send the UHCSearch traffic through a http proxy by using the CONNECT method. May I ask for some motivational use-case? =).

Regarding progress bar, I have been thinking about improving the aget progress bar in general. It is actually not a bad idea to optionally be able to show a "GUI" progress bar.

Has the 3.2 team been notified about the great RequestString suggestion and the Multiview search limitations?


@dschallock:

There is no GUI available, but it is still very powerful in its current form. Observe that the searchers will require a match for all words provided, so if you get too big result list, you can abort scrolling with ctrl-c and add more search words to cut down the number of results.

One thing I also can recommend is to set the UHCREADER ENV variable to say Multiview or MuchMore. This will make the the searcher's readme commands (aminetreadme, fishreadme, etc) display the readmes in a separate window, both increasinging control over reading and not scrolling away the search results.
 

Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2019, 10:03:12 PM »
May I ask for some motivational use-case? =)

Of course :)

The use case is when the Amiga system's isn't really online, but only is on a IPv4 peer-to-peer link to a modern system, that is on an IPv6-only LAN, using NAT64/DNS64 to access the legacy IPv4-only services - such as the UHC search sites - perhaps not a common scenario today, but one that may become more and more common in time ;)

Quote
Has the 3.2 team been notified about the great RequestString suggestion and the Multiview search limitations?
Yes, silence regarding RequestString, and a plain "no" on the Multiview search, it simply isn't available for Amiga guide datatype, and it isn't programmable.

Quote
One thing I also can recommend is to set the UHCREADER ENV variable to say Multiview or MuchMore.
I looked into my ENVARC: the other day, so much UHC#? :)
Perhaps an idea to put them in a folder? ${UHC/VIEWER} for example..

Damn, I now found another bug in OS 3.1.4 (and earlier)...
Code: [Select]
Setenv UHC/VIEWER Multiview
It creates ENV:UHC folder and the ENV:UHC/VIEWER file with correct content.

However
Code: [Select]
SetEnv SAVE UHC/VIEWER Multivew
does not create ENVARC:UHC folder and ENVARC:UHC/VIEWER file...

« Last Edit: December 21, 2019, 10:15:26 PM by kolla »
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline patrikTopic starter

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2019, 11:51:53 AM »
The use case is when the Amiga system's isn't really online, but only is on a IPv4 peer-to-peer link to a modern system, that is on an IPv6-only LAN, using NAT64/DNS64 to access the legacy IPv4-only services - such as the UHC search sites - perhaps not a common scenario today, but one that may become more and more common in time ;)

Sounds like a very dark future, I do hope we as a community have an IPV6 capable TCP/IP stack at that time. However, I do see the point, good to be prepared.

Quote
I looked into my ENVARC: the other day, so much UHC#? :)
Perhaps an idea to put them in a folder? ${UHC/VIEWER} for example..

We are aware, the plan is to tidy this up.

Quote
Damn, I now found another bug in OS 3.1.4 (and earlier)...
Code: [Select]
Setenv UHC/VIEWER Multiview
It creates ENV:UHC folder and the ENV:UHC/VIEWER file with correct content.

However
Code: [Select]
SetEnv SAVE UHC/VIEWER Multivew
does not create ENVARC:UHC folder and ENVARC:UHC/VIEWER file...

I have reported this bug, thanks for finding it.
 

Online nbache

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2019, 12:14:59 PM »
@patrik:

Note that this same bug was fixed some time ago in OS4 - in case that is useful for the 3.2 devs.

Best regards,

Niels
 

Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2019, 05:14:15 PM »
The use case is when the Amiga system's isn't really online, but only is on a IPv4 peer-to-peer link to a modern system, that is on an IPv6-only LAN, using NAT64/DNS64 to access the legacy IPv4-only services - such as the UHC search sites - perhaps not a common scenario today, but one that may become more and more common in time ;)

Sounds like a very dark future, I do hope we as a community have an IPV6 capable TCP/IP stack at that time.

Well, some of us have been living this "dark future" for quite some time (years) already. It's not so dark really, the only issue is legacy IPv4-only systems, but they are few and far apart. Aside from Amiga, the only other I can think of is Nintendo systems, but their "Wii" network is long gone anyways, right? :)

We as a community have been stuck with our heads in the sand for 2 decades, even as other alternative operating systems like RiscOS, Haiku, ReactOS etc have at least recognised the problem, have roadmaps that include IPv6, and even IPv6 implemented - for Amiga systems, there is nada... closest was Holger Kruse when he worked on Miami, he _had_ IPv6 plans. Two decades ago. So, I don't have much hopes for an Amiga IPv6 stack, really, everyone is just hoping for some magic router that will fix it all.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2019, 05:58:32 PM by kolla »
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline patrikTopic starter

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2019, 02:39:12 PM »
@kolla:

So if you want to use UHCSearch as it is now, how do you do it?
 

Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #10 on: December 27, 2019, 12:03:52 AM »
@kolla:
So if you want to use UHCSearch as it is now, how do you do it?

At home, I general, I don't.

I have my own aminet mirror and an "aminet search" is rsh+ssh to the BSD box that holds the mirror, via a raspberry pi, where it just performs a grep on the INDEX file :)

But I have my Minimig and MiSTer at work, where I've used UHCSearch as intended.

A work-around for my home-situation is to make an ipv4-tunnel from the home Amiga systems to some cloud service, for example (though these days some providers offer cheaper VPS instances when you make them IPv6-only...)
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline patrikTopic starter

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2019, 03:38:49 PM »
I looked into my ENVARC: the other day, so much UHC#? :)
Perhaps an idea to put them in a folder? ${UHC/VIEWER} for example..

Code: [Select]
8.Ram Disk:> uhcstatus
UHC Revision: 4938182ec00a058d1b126b02a8b3a53218cdf600

Type:             ENV:               Value:
Location          UHCBIN             SYS:UHC/
Temp Location     UHC/TEMPDIR        T:
Reader            UHC/READER         RES MuchMore
Show Archiver     UHC/SHOWARCHIVER   No
Show DL Progress  UHC/SHOWPROGRESS   Yes
Aminet Mirror     UHC/AMINETMIRROR   de.aminet.net/aminet/

A bit tidier?
 

Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2019, 04:23:37 PM »
A bit tidier?
Yes, very cool, thanks :)
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline patrikTopic starter

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2020, 03:28:15 PM »
@kolla:
So if you want to use UHCSearch as it is now, how do you do it?

At home, I general, I don't.

I have my own aminet mirror and an "aminet search" is rsh+ssh to the BSD box that holds the mirror, via a raspberry pi, where it just performs a grep on the INDEX file :)

But I have my Minimig and MiSTer at work, where I've used UHCSearch as intended.

A work-around for my home-situation is to make an ipv4-tunnel from the home Amiga systems to some cloud service, for example (though these days some providers offer cheaper VPS instances when you make them IPv6-only...)

We have changed UHCSearch to use HTTP, so now it should be as firewall friendly as possible.

It also supports sending the requests via a HTTP proxy by using the http_proxy ENV-variable.

Please report any issues you find.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2020, 03:29:39 PM by patrik »
 

Offline kolla

Re: New UHC Tools release
« Reply #14 on: January 07, 2020, 06:09:15 AM »
We have changed UHCSearch to use HTTP, so now it should be as firewall friendly as possible.

It also supports sending the requests via a HTTP proxy by using the http_proxy ENV-variable.

Please report any issues you find.

Very cool, it works well for me now :)
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS