przem360 / pbterm Goto Github PK

This program allows to interact with shells avalable on the
Pocktbook. It is intended for Pocketbook models with a touch
screen (it has been tested with a PB622 and PB623, but hope-
fully will work also with other models). It is loosely based
on the poterm program by (I assume) Mr. Fedorchenko (as avai-
lable from <http://fedorchenko.net/pb.php>).

The Communication with the shell is per default done using a
pseudoterminal. If a pseudoterminal can't be used due to
missing permissions (as was the case with older firmware
versions) a set of pipes is used instead (which results in
slightly reduced cabalilities).

NOTE: I found that on the PB622 with firmware version 4.0.373
      the program didn't start (or crashed shortly after it
      had been started). Upgrading to the newest firmware
      version available for the PB622, 4.2, fixed the pro-
      blem. On the PB623 I only did tests with the currently
      newest firmware, 4.3.

WARNING: When using the terminal you're able to e.g. delete
         files and do other things you can't do using just the
         normal graphical interface. So you can delete or modify
         important data from the device without the program stop-
         ping you. It's your responsibility to make sure this
         doesn't happen. Don't use this program if you don't
         feel comfortable with using a command line shell and
         have some knowledge of how things work under Unix. E.g.
         if you enter a command (DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TRYING
         THIS!) like "rm -r" in the toplevel directory ALL files
         not especially protected (and e.g. none of your books
         are) will vanish and can't be recovered - there's no
         waste bin! Make sure you know what each command will
         do and that you didn't misspell it. Keep current back-
         ups handy. You have been warned!

To install the program simply copy "pterm.app" to the directory
"applications" of your Pocketbook. You can optionally also copy
the file "pbterm.cfg" to "system/config" and modify a number ofd
properties of the program by changing this file. There's also
a keyboard layout file, 'pbterm.kbd', which adds the '|' character
to the default english keyboard layout. If you want to use it
copy the file to 'system/share/pbterm/' (if necessary create that
dirctory). The keyboard file can also places somewhere else, the
location can be set in the configuration file.

When the program is running a short tab on most of the screen area
(the exceptions are small areas in the upper left and right hand
corner and the lower left hand quarter of the screen) brings up
the on-screen keyboard to let you enter shell commands (the ash
shell from BusyBox and already installe on the device gets used
per default). The command and the results returned by the shell
are shown on the screen. Also pressing the menu button brings up
the keyboard.

If there are more output lines than fit onto the screen you can
scroll using vertical swipes. The number of lines you can scroll
up and down is in order not to waste memory (a somewhat scarce
resource on these devices) limited to 1024 lines. This limit is
configurable, you can, as many other settings, modify it via
the configuration file.

If you shortly press the button with the triangle pointing
right or up (depending on orientation) "recording" is started.
While recording is on all commands you enter as well as the
shells replies get written to a log file which then can be
downloaded afterwards. While in recording mode a black square
is shown in the right upper hand corner of the screen. To stop
recording press the same button again. Alteratively recording
can also be switched on and off by tapping in the upper right
hand corner of the screen.

To increase or decrease the font size keep the forward or back-
ward button pressed down for some time. The default font size
(as well as the font itself) can be set via the configuration
file. If the version of the libinkview library on your device
supports it also two-finger guestures (moving them apart to
increase and pulling them together to ecrease the fint size)
may work

A long tap on the screen (or a short press on the "backward"
button or a short tab into the lower left hand region of the
screen, about a quarter of its width and height) brings up the
on-screen menu. This menu currently has six entries. The first
one is for a submenu that shows previously entered commands,
with the newest on top. Selecting one brings up the on-screen
keyboard with that command already set in the input field of
the keyboard (where you normally find the last command entered).
The list of commands may become longer than than fits on the
screen, in which case you can scroll. Again there's also a
configurable limit on the commands the program stores, which
per default is set to 50. All commands entered get saved to a
file (also configurable) when the program exits. This file is
read in again the next time the program gets started.

The next entry is another submenu, labeled "User command"
which may contain commands (or parts of commands) that you
find you use very often. The get read from a file which per
default is "system/share/pbterm/user.cmd"(but that's adjustable
via the configuration file. Simply put the commands you tend
to use often in here, one commmand per line, and they will
appear in the submenu in the same order.

The third entry also is a submenu, "Send CRTL", that lets you
send a "Ctrl-C", "Ctrl-D" or "Ctrl-Z" or "Ctrl-[" to the shell
(which in a normal terminal would be achieved by pressing the
<CRTL> key together with either 'c', 'd' or 'z' or, for the
last, the <ESC> key). Note that this submenu is disabled if
communication with the shell must be done via pipes instead
of a pseudoterminal. "^C" is used to kill a programm that you
started from the command line and "^Z" to suspend it (to be
be reactivated via the 'fg' or 'bg' command). "^D"  hould only
be used in case you started a program that waits for input from
you - it signals it that no more input will ever be made. Be
careful with this control character, if the shell receives it
instead of some program you started from the shell the shell
itself will accept it and quit, and thereby the whole terminal
program,

The fourth submenu lets you switch between the custom keyboard
layout coming with this program and the default keyboard(s) -
as long as the custom keyboard file can be found and hasn't
been disabled via the configuration file - otherwise this
submenu is disabled.

The remaining two entries in the on-screen menu allow you to
rotate the screen and to exit the program.

Beside using the on-screen menu the program can also be quit
by entering 'exit' in the on-screen keyboard or by a short
tap in the upper left-hand corner.

The log file used per default is "system/share/pbterm/pbterm.log",
(on the disk appearing when the device is attached to a computer
via USB). This can be changed via the configuration file, named
"system/config/pbterm.cfg".

The configuration file "pbterm.cfg" coming with the program
contains a list of all settings the program knows about (with
values that are more or les the default settings of the pro-
gram) and a short description of its (very simple) syntax.

The file for storing commands is "system/share/pbterm/pbterm.cmd"
per default (but the location can be modified via the configu-
ration file. It just contains commands, one per line (empty
lines and those starting with a '#' are skipped). You may
edit it and e.g. insert further commands manually. Just
remember that there's an upper limit on the number of commands
(modifiable via the configuration file) and only that many
commands will be read from the command file.

The program per default tries to read in a layout file for the
on-screen keyboard from 'system/share/pbterm/pbterm.kbd'. This
is a slightly modifier layout for the english keyboard, with
the major difference being that the missing '|' character has
been added. The configuration file allows you to select a
different layout file (or none). If the file does not exist
or is disabled via the configuration file the normal keyboard
is used.

The file with the commands that you often use, per default you
should create it as "/system/hare/pbterm/user.cmd", may contain
one command per line. Empty lines or lines starting with a hash
mark ('#') are skipped. If the very last character of a line is
a hash mark then this command will be send to the shell imme-
diately, i.e. the keyboard won't pop up to let you edit this
command.

The program is not 100% bullet-proof. When trying to "view" a
largish binary file I had it crashing, I suspect due to memory
exhaustion (debugging is a bit difficult;-) Alse the way it has
to interact with the shell imposes some restrictions.

The program comes with full source code (under the GPL3). Feel
free to change and improve on it as you wish as long as you
distribute it also with making the sources available under
the GPL3.

For compiling you may have to tweak the CMakeList.txt file,
which in it's current form assumes the the 'pbterm' directory
is in the 'sources' directory of the SDK.

25/9/2013   Jens Thoms Toerring
            Email:     [email protected]>
            Homepage:  http://toerring.de