Hatari 1.8, Windows, how to change drive letter in file selector

[mxmxmx]

Hi,

probably a dumb question, but how can I change to another drive in the file selector in Hatari 1.8 for Windows? I can go all the way up to the root directory of the current drive with the "/" or ".." buttons, but I can't find a way to switch say from "C:" to "D:".

Thanks!

[arf]

In TOS versions before 1.04 (so: Disk-TOS, TOS 1.00, TOS 1.02) there is no (default) way to click to other drives. Go up to the Path edit field, scroll left, delete the "C" and replace it by "D".

Starting with TOS 1.04 programmes could call the new, slightly improved fileselector, offering drive letter to click on. Alternatively, install one of the many, many, many third-party fileselectors. Their plentiness shoes how bad the original one was. Selectric, UIS III, Boxkite, LGFS, Freedom, Edison Utility, to name a few. Grab them, copy them to the AUTO folder, or if it is an Accessory, to C:, reboot and enjoy an even better fileselector, whether it is TOS 1.0 or 2.06.

[mxmxmx]

Oh, it seems my question was unclear. I wasn't talking about the TOS file selector. Of course I know how to use that.

Its Hatari's own file selector -- the one that is used for example to select a floppy image from the F12 on-screen-menu -- that doesn't allow me changing Windows drive letters.

So how do I change drive letters here? (No, it is not possible to manually edit the path "C:\Temp\...".)

hatari.png

[Eero Tamminen]

probably a dumb question, but how can I change to another drive in the file selector in Hatari 1.8 for Windows? I can go all the way up to the root directory of the current drive with the "/" or ".." buttons, but I can't find a way to switch say from "C:" to "D:".

I don't think there's such a feature [1]. To work around that, you could set "szDiskImageDirectory" option in hatari.cfg file to a drive that you want to browse, before starting Hatari. You could have multiple such config files and start Hatari with one pointing to drive you want to use.

[1] DOS is only thing that requires drive letters, every other modern OS (OSX, Linux, Android etc) includes all the drives in normal directory hierarchy. Nobody has requested such feature before and no Windows user has contributed code for that to Hatari. Hatari developers don't have Windows, so it needs external Windows user to write & test code for that.

[xnonsuchx]

Oh, it seems my question was unclear. I wasn't talking about the TOS file selector. Of course I know how to use that.

Its Hatari's own file selector -- the one that is used for example to select a floppy image from the F12 on-screen-menu -- that doesn't allow me changing Windows drive letters.

So how do I change drive letters here? (No, it is not possible to manually edit the path "C:\Temp\...".)

hatari.png

The best thing to do on Windows is to make sure all files you need to access on are the same drive since the navigation options can only go to the root of the current drive. There are a few workarounds, though. For instance, if you keep all your disk images on another drive, you can manually edit the hatari.cfg file in "C:\Users\<username>\.hatari" ("C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\.hatari" for WinXP or earlier)...assuming C: is your system drive...and change some of the default paths like "szDiskImageDirectory = " to be the directory to where all your floppy disk images are. Another option if you have disk images all over the place (why??? ) is to make .bat files you can just drag disk images to to launch them.

e.g. I have my default config set to be 4MB STE emulation in low resolution w/ fast floppy access on in windowed mode w/ statusbar on, so when I need to open a game in ST mode w/o fast floppy access on due to compatibility issues, I have the following .bat file set up to drag the disk image (from wherever it is, even on a network location) to:

F:\GAMES\hatari-1.9.0_windows\hatari.exe --machine st --tos F:\GAMES\hatari-1.9.0_windows\tos104.img --fastfdc no %1

or if I want to try to record my regular STE emulation session to AVI:

F:\GAMES\hatari-1.9.0_windows\hatari.exe --borders no --zoom 1 --crop yes --avirecord %1


I'll take a look at the code to see if there's an easy solution to the file selector (I'm not a programmer as far as writing new code from scratch, but can figure some existing code out and sometimes am able to tweak it and recompile it...as I had to do w/ Hatari for PS3 OtherOS Yellowdog Linux use since v1.4.0).

[Eero Tamminen]

On Linux one can register binaries as handlers for specific types of files (either based on file content or file name extension), e.g. registering Hatari as handler for *.ST disk image files. After that, Hatari runs with the given floppy image when one double clicks on it in file manager / desktop.

I assume something similar can be done on Windows. That way it doesn't matter where the disk image is.

[Bikerbob]

Did this ever get updated??

Really?? I would do it, but I dont know how. Thats crazy.. I am now starting to use Hatari as a testing platform for my setup on my real machine.

I have a cosmos and I use USB drives.. so all my programs are on a USB drive.. Hatari is on my drive F: on the PC and I wanted to be able to access all the .ST images etc.. for installing software to Hatari.. but I have not been able to select another drive.

I would like to use Hatari over STEEM because it specifically emulates a MegaSTE.. but the file selector is a deal breaker.

This thread is 4 years old.. no one was able to come up with a way to switch drives?

James

[darwinmac]

No, it has not been updated. It is not that “no one was able to come up with a way”. The developers use Linux where this issue does not exist.

The Windows version is the only one where the SDL file selector is the only option. If the Hatari developers received a patch to allow switching Windows drives, I am sure they would be interested. Right now, I doubt they will spend time on a problem that exists on a platform they do not use.

Have you tried creating a shortcut to your other drive? Would the file selector obey the shortcut and display the files?

I use the Mac version so I haven’t tried this on the Windows version that I rarely use.

Bob C

[spiny]

Have you tried creating a shortcut to your other drive? Would the file selector obey the shortcut and display the files?



Bob C

I tried this as I also thought it would work, but the file selector just sees the shortcut as .lnk file :/

[czietz]

Apart from shortcuts (which are just .lnk files to which the Windows shell applies some magic), Windows also has links on file system (NTFS) level. They can be created on the command line with the mklink utility: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... nds/mklink. In particular, I would create a bunch of "directory junctions" on C: pointing to the root directories your different drives. Then Hatari can access the drives as if they were directories on C:.

[darwinmac]

I did not realize Windows supported symbolic links. That would definitely something to try.

Bob C

[spiny]

Yup, that seems to work

Use the command mklink in an elevated command prompt (i.e. run the ciommand prompt as administrator)
use /D for directory
first path is the link you want to create
second path is the destination for the link
here I am creating a link to my C: drive and calling it 'CDrive'

hatari01.png

How it looks in explorer

hatari02.png

How it looks in Hatari file selector

hatari03.png

and clicking it takes me to my C: drive

hatari04.png

[czietz]

Use the command mklink in an elevated command prompt (i.e. run the ciommand prompt as administrator)
use /D for directory

I was thinking of directory junctions (command switch "/J") because these don't require administrative privileges to create.

[spiny]

Use the command mklink in an elevated command prompt (i.e. run the ciommand prompt as administrator)
use /D for directory

I was thinking of directory junctions (command switch "/J") because these don't require administrative privileges to create.

Didn't know about that switch - works fine too

hatari05.png

[Bikerbob]

Fantastic! I will do this! Thanks guys! This makes life much easier.. I can create links down to where my USB drives would normally be.. and if its pluged in the link will work!

James

[Eero Tamminen]

Why not just register Hatari as handler for *.st files, or *.ST.gz files (latter to use less space and differentiate them from potential other files that might use *.st extension)? Then Hatari would be automatically started when you click on a *.st(.gz) file on your desktop.

[spiny]

Why not just register Hatari as handler for *.st files, or *.ST.gz files (latter to use less space and differentiate them from potential other files that might use *.st extension)? Then Hatari would be automatically started when you click on a *.st(.gz) file on your desktop.

I expect the USB drive has -files- on it not disk images, thats how I read it anyway.

[Eero Tamminen]

At least on Linux, it's possible to register Hatari as handler for Atari programs, not just disk images. Hatari even includes a script for that: https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari ... egister.sh

Does Windows have any kind of facility to register handlers for binary files (files that begin with specific content / bytes)?

If not, one could register Hatari as handler e.g. for files with *.tos file name extension.

[spiny]

At least on Linux, it's possible to register Hatari as handler for Atari programs, not just disk images. Hatari even includes a script for that: https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari ... egister.sh

Does Windows have any kind of facility to register handlers for binary files (files that begin with specific content / bytes)?

If not, one could register Hatari as handler e.g. for files with *.tos file name extension.

Windows is all about file extensions, so yes, it's trivial to register Hatari with *.prg , *.tos etc

but how does Hatari handle that? does it load then immeadiatly run the PRG I double clicked? presumably nothing useful would happen for non executable atari files like *.PI1 *.S etc ?

I'm more used to Steem, where I boot with drives mapped as atari hard drives and can browse while in the program to map removable storage if I've just inserted a USB stick with some pixel art i'm working on etc.

[ThorstenOtto]

but how does Hatari handle that?

It installs a temporary desktop.inf/newdesk.inf/emudesk.inf (whichever is appropiate for the selected TOS), which has the program installed as autostart application.

presumably nothing useful would happen for non executable atari files like *.PI1 *.S etc ?

No, that won't work.

[Eero Tamminen]

As first step Hatari checks that the binary is an Atari program. If it is, Hatari will start the program using the program's directory as C: root, i.e. it works only if program works with its own dir being the hard disk root (there isn't e.g. a config file telling program to load its files from some other path etc).

As Thorsten mentioned, Hatari does the program startup by providing a virtual INF file for TOS, which tells it to autostart the indicated program. Autostarting is supported by TOS v1.04 or newer (Hatari will show warning dialog if TOS is too old).