@database UniGen.guide @author "Galahad of Fairlight" @(C) "Copyright 1998" @width 75 @wordwrap @font topaz.font 7 @node "Main" "UniGen Instructions" @{FG SHINE} --------------------------- UniGen v1.0 - Amiga Version --------------------------- @{FG TEXT} @{" Introduction" link "Introduction" } - Brief overview @{" Disclaimer " link "disclaimer" } - Legal bit @{" History " link "history" } - Program History @{" Instructions" link "instruc" } - Using UniGen @{" And then? " link "then" } - What next @{" Copyright " link "copyright" } - Copyright @endnode @node "Introduction" "A bit about this release" @{FG SHINE}____________________________________________________________________________@{FG TEXT} ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ UniGen v1.0 by Galahad of Fairlight @{FG SHINE}____________________________________________________________________________@{FG TEXT} ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ UniGen - UnInstaller Generator This piece of software is a simple transparent addition for your Amiga. I am willing to bet money, that you have installed countless hundreds of programs onto your Amiga, and try as you might, you can't seem to remove all of the files that belong to the program (Allthough you are sure you got rid of most of them!). Before too long, your hard drive is full, and you daren't remove any files, in case they are system critical (i.e. You remove them and your Amiga doesn't work properly anymore!) files. This is where UniGen comes in. It can be used with any Game / Utility / (De)Archiver that uses AmigaDOS to write the files to your system. UniGen will be able to make a record of those files, and generate a text file, telling you exactly where the files were written to, and what the filenames were. It's a simple piece of software, and I originally wrote it for myself, but then realised that many other people would find this of use as well, hence the public release. The PC has many programs like this, although on a much grander scale. Quite why those programs need to be so large, when the task that is asked of them is so simple is beyond me, but then again, you won't need a 68o6o processor and 32 Megabytes of ram to run UniGen either! I hope you find it of use. I have never seen anything like this on the Amiga. I maybe wrong, and there maybe another utility that does the exact same thing, but I just don't know, but theres no harm in releasing this anyway! I do know that the Commodore Installer writes out a log of installations, but its rubbish..... come to think of it, Commodore were pretty rubbish!!!!!!!! Signed Galahad of Fairlight @{" Main Menu " link "Main" } @endnode @node "Disclaimer" "The MUST have legal bit" @{FG SHINE} DISCLAIMER: Did you know that a disclaimer is NOT legally recognised? Well, its not! So there is no point in me issuing one as if for some reason someone wanted to take me to court over this program, and I used a disclaimer as evidence, the court would throw it out as inadmissable. In short, a disclaimer is not worth the paper or bytes its printed on!!! @{FG TEXT} @{" Main Menu " link "Main" } @endnode @node "Then" "What to do with the .UNI file" So you have your .UNI file, but what next. Do you have to delete every listed file one by one? Of course not! UniGen saves out the listings as a script file. Put simply, if you were to use the EXECUTE AmigaDOS command on ANY .UNI file, it would then delete every listed file within that .UNI file, except any files that were marked off as being on the hard drive before you installed that program. And thats it..... thats how easy it is. Nothing complicated, just nice and easy. @endnode @node "History" "Program History and other information" UniGen started life as a few lines of code in 1994, which curiously enough was when I got my first Hard drive for my A12oo. I was getting a bit sick and tired of installing things on my hard drive (generally LHA/LZX/ZIP archives) and not knowing fully where every file was. In the end my hard drive became an un-optimized mess with millions of files all over the place, and at least 65% of them, I had no idea if I still needed or wanted them. The old version of UniGen had no useability about it at all, so on April 29th 1998, I decided to sit down and make the first definitive version. Three hours later after some strange bugs were ironed out, UniGen was finished. Unigen will generate a text file listing ALL files relevant to the installation procedure at the time of UniGen being active. If UniGen detects that the file that is being installed is already present, it will still list the filename in the .UNI file, but will insert a ';' mark in front of the filename to stop accidental deletion of the file, should you execute the .UNI script. This is a deliberate attempt to not corrupt your system files. Without this, you could potentially delete system critical files, and you would blame me!!! @{FG SHINE} UniGen was written on an Amiga A4ooo o3o/MMu/FPu using Devpac 3 from HiSoft. 374 Lines of code 1830 Bytes of Assembled code 'REQTOOLS.LIBRARY' Copyright Nico Francois Tested on the following configurations: Amiga A1ooo v1.1 512k (I kid you not!) Amiga A5oo v1.2 1 Meg Amiga A5oo v1.3 1 Meg Amiga A6oo v2.1 1 Meg Amiga A12oo v3.0 10 Meg Amiga A4ooo v3.1 16 Meg @{FG TEXT} There was no real need for me to test it on all of these machines, as there is not an ounce of hardware 'bashing' code in UniGen. Everything is System friendly, so there is also no reason why UniGen would not work on a machine equipped with an 68o4o or a 68o6o processor. @{" Main Menu " link "Main" } @endnode @node "Instruc" "Instructional use of UniGen" Lets use WordWorth as our example program that we are going to install. The UniGen executable filename is funnily enough 'UniGen'. We need to pass some information to UniGen so that it will generate a distinctive file after WordWorth has finished. At the command line in Workbench we would type: @{FG SHINE} UniGen WordWorth @{FG TEXT} We are telling UniGen that we want it to generate a file called 'WordWorth', that way when it comes to removing WordWorth from your Amiga, it is very unlikely you will confuse it with a UniGen file for Deluxe Paint! UniGen saves out files with a '.UNI' extension. This is for two reasons: 1) So it doesn't clash with any filenames from the program you are installing. 2) And so you can easily spot the file that you may want to look at so you can remove the installed program. So now UniGen will save out a file relevant to WordWorth in your SYS:S/ directory @{" Why this directory?" link "Why" } as 'WordWorth.UNI'. So now we have given UniGen a program name to work from, and after you press , you will be presented with a requester, with two options: ACTIVATE CAPTURE / QUIT The QUIT option will ALWAYS quit UniGen and will save NOTHING to the Hard drive. ACTIVATE CAPTURE when clicked on will tell UniGen that you are ready. Of course, because we are using fabbo AmigaDOS with its multitasking, all you do after clicking on the ACTIVATE option is then activate your installer / archiver / whatever. UniGen will now be actively waiting for any calls to AmigaDOS and will save the relevant information. After you clicked on the ACTIVATE icon, you would have been presented with another box which gives you more options in plain English!!! Only click on the UNIGEN SAVE icon AFTER the program you are installing has finished. If you don't, then UniGen will miss out file details! @{" Main Menu " link "Main" } @endnode @node "Why" "Why the SYS:S/ directory" The reason why UniGen saves out to your SYS:S/ directory, is because it is one of the few absolute constants on the Amiga. Like the PC you can be sure of the C:\ directory, so the SYS:S/ directory on the Amiga will always exist, otherwise your Amiga would never boot up a startup-sequence. I urge you not to alter UniGen from saving to this directory, as future upgrades (possible if more suggestions can be made) will need this point of reference. @endnode @node "Copyright" "Copyright and Distribution" @{FG SHINE} UniGen remains the sole Copyright of Galahad of Fairlight. @{FG TEXT} This utility is intended for use by anyone. No fee or registration is asked for or is wanted. If you like it, spread it. You may make as many copies as you like. @{FG SHINE} Public Domain Libraries: May sell/distribute this utility, provided ALL documentation is included and left untouched! If you can meet these simple requirements, then you are free to sell/distribute it as you wish. UniGen is useless without the accompanying documentation. Also if this utility is to be advertised in a magazine, it must have my name as part of the credit, similarly, if someone in a magazine deems it worthy of a place on a coverdisk (CD) they too must provide my name as a credit. This is not an unreasonable request.... I demand no money, and expect no money, but I just want my moral rights asserted! @{FG TEXT} Any other references to any products/programs etc that are mentioned in this documentation are recognised as being the copyright of the respective owners. @endnode