New tag %ft grab a line of text from a file

[iPodVT]

I'm not aware of any ipods having a software-queryable serial number, and to be honest the serial number isn't something you'd ever want to display during normal use -- it's ugly.  You'd want a nonoffensive human-friendly string instead.  (Current default is 'Rockbox!' which we think is appropriate)

I agree that displaying the serial number by default would be unattractive.  (But with the ipod6g, the serial number apparently is accessible via software-query.  It's displayed in System->Debug->View SysCfg.

[speachy]

I'm not aware of any ipods having a software-queryable serial number, and to be honest the serial number isn't something you'd ever want to display during normal use -- it's ugly.  You'd want a nonoffensive human-friendly string instead.  (Current default is 'Rockbox!' which we think is appropriate)

I agree that displaying the serial number by default would be unattractive.  (But with the ipod6g, the serial number apparently is accessible via software-query.  It's displayed in System->Debug->View SysCfg.

Ugh, that was supposed to be "non-ipods".  As in ipods are the only ones I'm aware of that have serial numbers that software can query.

(A lot of others _theoretically_ have serial numbers in flash that can be queried, but in practice they're all set to some default value)

[Frankenpod]

I agree that displaying the serial number by default would be unattractive.  (But with the ipod6g, the serial number apparently is accessible via software-query.  It's displayed in System->Debug->View SysCfg.

Thanks for that information - somehow hadn't noticed that.  Currently keep track of which-is-which (and remember which has which permutation of sd cards in it and any faults it has and when it was last synched etc) via that serial number, but didn't realise the number was accessible without having to reboot in OF.

(The serial number also indicates the ipod's date-of-manufacture, apparently)

[iPodVT]

I agree that displaying the serial number by default would be unattractive.  (But with the ipod6g, the serial number apparently is accessible via software-query.  It's displayed in System->Debug->View SysCfg.

Thanks for that information - somehow hadn't noticed that.  Currently keep track of which-is-which (and remember which has which permutation of sd cards in it and any faults it has and when it was last synched etc) via that serial number, but didn't realise the number was accessible without having to reboot in OF.

(The serial number also indicates the ipod's date-of-manufacture, apparently)

I deal with the same issue by having a small text file named "About This iPod.txt" in the root directory on each of my iPods.  The file contains info re its iPod's model designation and hardware mods (see 1-AboutThisiPod.jpg below).  Some of that info comes from everymac.com.  Then I put a link to the "About This iPod.txt" file at the top of my Shortcuts menu (see 2-ShortcutsMenuTop.jpg below) which, when selected, causes the file to be opened by the Text Viewer plugin.  My Shortcuts include all of my most often accessed Settings and also some that are only used from time to time for testing purposes (like "Sleep in 1 minute").  It also contains links to other files and folders, and has Reboot and Shutdown at the bottom (see 3-ShortcutsMenuBottom.jpg below).  Finally, I have "Shortcuts instead of Quick Screen" turned on for the fastest, most immediately direct access.  The Shortcuts menu is my version of the macOS Apple menu.  I have never yet had a need to use the Quick Screen.

[Bilgus]

I really like the playername being in .rockbox only because it allows me to mark which build I'm running and carry it around with them

the other issue I have is allowing themes to access user data isn't the way the rest of the stuff works

[Edit]
what if we looked in the root at boot and if exists its copied into .rockbox

[Bilgus]

These patches got moved around a bit today

[Feature] Skin engine Themes grab text from a file %ft(file, line) is now g#6154

and built on top:
[Feature] skinengine subline timeout hide line for n seconds
https://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/c/rockbox/+/6153

which adds a optional timeout to alternating sublines

Sorry for any confusion!

[iPodVT]

I really like the playername being in .rockbox only because it allows me to mark which build I'm running and carry it around with them

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean by that.

the other issue I have is allowing themes to access user data isn't the way the rest of the stuff works

When the user chooses "Reset Playlist Catalog Directory", Rockbox creates "/Playlists" (in the root directory), clears the "playlist catalog directory" config setting, and then when a theme calls %St(playlist catalog directory) Rockbox returns the name of the Playlist Catalog Directory that it created in the root directory.  Isn't that Rockbox specifically and intentionally defaulting to having themes access user data in the root directory?

[Edit]
what if we looked in the root at boot and if exists its copied into .rockbox

It's not a good idea (IMHO) to auto-relocate user data from the most visible possible location to a different and hidden location.

I don't mean to be obstinate, but I feel very strongly about this and therefore duty-bound to express my opinions [edit] and make my case.  But you can be sure that if you go ahead with your intending intended implementation I will not abandon Rockbox and go back to using the Apple firmware.  I'm too hooked on circular menu scrolling...

[Bilgus]

yeah sorry we are sort of looking at the rest of rockbox
https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/DataBase.html#tagnavi.config_v2.0_Syntax for instance

and I think this will prevent issues with multivolume devices and hosted builds

also the playlist thing its still limited to that one directory it doesn't have free reign to go thru the user files

[Bilgus]

we also don't don't know what context rockbox is running in you would want an app running on your phone to start having root access? your pc?

[iPodVT]

we also don't don't know what context rockbox is running in you would want an app running on your phone to start having root access? your pc?

Sorry for the very delayed response.

The various security implications hadn't occured to me, and I totally acknowledge that they must take precedence over my previously stated opinions re UI aesthetics and theme usage conveniences.

I just now updated to the current dev build and have switched my usage of %St to %ft in order to retrieve the name I want to display in my theme's status bar.  Being ever inclined to push back against limits, I moved the playername.txt file into my root directory and edited my player's name into it, and when I rebooted I found that Rockbox had created a new initialized playername.txt file in the .rockbox directory (as I expected), but %ft still retrieved my edited text from /playername.txt as specified in my .sbs file (as I hoped).  Is this an unintended implementation oversight?

[speachy]

I just now updated to the current dev build and have switched my usage of %St to %ft in order to retrieve the name I want to display in my theme's status bar.  Being ever inclined to push back against limits, I moved the playername.txt file into my root directory and edited my player's name into it, and when I rebooted I found that Rockbox had created a new initialized playername.txt file in the .rockbox directory (as I expected), but %ft still retrieved my edited text from /playername.txt as specified in my .sbs file (as I hoped).  Is this an unintended implementation oversight?

Can you please double-check the contents of /.rockbox/playername.txt ?  Because the way the code is written, '/.rockbox/' is _always_ prepended to what is supplied in the %ft tag.

[iPodVT]

Can you please double-check the contents of /.rockbox/playername.txt ?  Because the way the code is written, '/.rockbox/' is _always_ prepended to what is supplied in the %ft tag.

The contents of /.rockbox/playername.txt is "Rockbox!".  The contents of my copy at /playername.txt is "Bed_Pod".  The line of code from my .sbs file is

%ac%?bs<Sleep %bs|%ss(0,-,%ft(/playername.txt, 0))>

which displays the remaining time of the sleep timer if one is set, or else it displays "Bed_Pod".

[iPodVT]

%ac%?bs<Sleep %bs|%ss(0,-,%ft(/playername.txt, 0))>

Is my slash in %ft(/playername.txt, 0) creating a conflict that interferes with your prepended '/.rockbox/'?  That would result in a double slash.

[iPodVT]

%ac%?bs<Sleep %bs|%ss(0,-,%ft(/playername.txt, 0))>

FYI:  The %ss is an unnecessary remnant from my earlier hack of stashing the playername in the Playlists Catalog filename.  Now I have simplified the line to

%ac%?bs<Sleep %bs|%ft(/playername.txt, 0)>

which retrieves the playername but still causes Rockbox to use /playername.txt instead of /.rockbox/playername.txt.

[Bilgus]

yeah appending / makes it absolute I actually should block that since its going to cause heaps of trouble if we let it into the themes and it goes on a mv target