Extinstall V2 final release

[unclemiltie]

Edit 2/28/11

I've just updated the V2.1 release of Extinstall to fix a bug in processing the "General comment" on the general tab. In some cases the comments were not installed properly. This is a minor annoyance but something that had been bugging me for a while and I got a few free minutes today to fix.



Edit 12/29/10

I've just uploaded to the tools folder V2.1 of Extinstall that fixes a bug discovered by Liz in processing FAV entries with LONG advance code format remtoes (i.e. all of the JP1.3 remotes and some others) If you don't use FAV there is nothing new here and you don't need to upgrade. the file name remains the same so that I don't break compatibility with IR.


Edit 9/8/07


A new version of Extinstall that has the following additions from the version that has been around for a while. Thanks to John for sending me the source and to Vicky, Liz and JoeDaring for running this version through the paces and to Binky123 for debugging and releasing a new version of IR that supports [notes] and JP1.x.

What's new:

1: support for AdvCodeFormat=LONG (the newer remotes have this format for all advance codes) and translation from the older format to the new format for those extenders that have implemented the old format on a remote that implements the LONG format

2: support for SectionTerminator=$FF which is also in many of the newer remotes. This would often confuse Extinstall in the past

3: copying and preserving the "notes" section in the IR file. The old Extinstall would not copy these and would fail to do anything if the notes section was present in your IR file. This version also supports adding [notes] to the end of the hex files so that extender writers can add comments regarding the built-in protocols, devices, keymoves and macros. [notes] in the HEX file supercede those in the IR file on collisions.

4: Support for JP1.x extenders with the addition of a -signature=$address command line switch. This allows Extinstall to find the proper signature in JP1.x files that don't have the signature at the usual (default) address of $0002 in the IR file. In addition, the output of Extinstall will start at BaseAddress and all addresses have been converted to 4 hex digits to allow for the high addresses in the JP1.x remotes.

With the release of IR 7.04 by Binky123, the new version of Extinstall is supported in the "Merge Using" menu (including JP1.x remotes, both JP1.2 and JP1.3 remote files have been tested)

5: for the experts who read raw data often, the "fill" byte for unused memory is now the complement of the SectionTerminator value. Thus, if the terminator is $00, you will see no different (Extinstall used FF before) but if the terminator is $FF, you will see fills with $00

6: The address at the beginning of the lines is now 4 hex digits (no real impact on anyone who uses the tool) to support JP1.x remotes





I've uploaded the new version here:

http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... le_id=5017

[unclemiltie]

This version of Extinstall is built with MS Visual 2005 and thus requires the Microsoft VC 8 runtime, which is downloadable from Microsoft here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

[vickyg2003]

What will it take to get this included in IR?

[unclemiltie]

Vicky

I didn't make this new version work any differently from the old version, at least from the point of view of how it gets invoked and how it gets its command line. Have you tried renaming this to "extinstall.exe" and then telling IR where the new version resides? I suspect that it will work.


That begs the question for others: should I just rename this extinstall and be done with it?

[vickyg2003]

So IR would just have to amend the call to use a signature parameter?

[ElizabethD]

That begs the question for others: should I just rename this extinstall and be done with it?

Yup.
I suppose Rob or a real owner will need to rename the current one to something else in the file section first, but maybe not.

[unclemiltie]

So IR would just have to amend the call to use a signature parameter? :?:

yea, I forgot about that when I was on the road and did a quick response. IR now has to put the command line switch on for a signature. It can either always put it on (Extinstall will happily accept a -sig=0002) or it can put it on only if the sig is not at $0002.

since IR already knows where the sig is, this change should be trivial

[unclemiltie]

I've edited the root topic here to indicate that this is now released. Binky has released a new version of IR that will support this as well.

I made the decision to release this as "Extinstall" and not have a new name on the end to allow for those who have scripts and other things to take advantage of this version. It should be backward compatible with the old version so this should not present an issue.

[joedaring]

Hi Bill,

I've been away for a few days and have just seen this msg...

Where can I DL latest ExtInstall? Where is Binky123's IR new version?

I want to keep my tools the most up-to-date that I can...

Thanks a lot, Bill
Ciao

Joe

[Capn Trips]

All are in the logical locations in the Tools area of the Files section:

Where can I DL latest ExtInstall? Where is Binky123's IR new version?

[unclemiltie]

Issue: It appears that the JP1.3 remotes are not as tolerant to data in the E2 area that is not what they expect and I (and binky123) have had some issues with the remotes doing hard resets and other bad things like resetting the signature when the data in the E2 buffer isn't "right"

Anyway, one of the features of Extinstall is that it puts the complement of the SectionTerminator byte into all of the unused spots in the E2 as a way to show that is unused. The sections are terminated correctly with the right byte, but the rest is complemented.

So, I've made a new version that I have not yet released that fills all of the unused data with the section terminator. Given that this was a feature of the Extinstall that existed before I updated it for the JP1.x remotes and the newer JP1 remotes, I wanted to get feedback from others before I release this as an update to Extinstall.

how important was this feature? Should I go through the trouble to figure out if the remote is a JP1.x remote (use BaseAddr maybe) and only do this for JP1 remotes and not JP1.x? Or should I just take it out and construct the IR files with the section terminator as the fill byte?


thoughts?

[vickyg2003]

Bill, I just want to thank you again for this version of extinstall. Its been 3 years since I wrote my last extender and I've forgotten how to do a lot of things but I remember what a PITA trying to diagnose extinstall problems! When trying to put together my HEX file, I made some mistakes, but thanks to your helpful error messages at the command line, it wasn't a big deal.

I really appreciate this tool! So three years later I want to say thanks again!

[unclemiltie]

Well, it's been 3 years since I released Extinstall2. how time flies.

Liz discovered a bug in the Atlas extender in doing FAV processing and while debugging that I found that Extinstall also doesn't process FAV's right on remotes with AdvCodeFormat=Long.

What happened was it was reading the "length" in the new format as the number of FAVs and then multiplying that by the FAVlength from the RDF resulting in a very long FAV string of jibberish being inserted into the file.


I just built a new version that fixes this and sent it to Liz for testing. If anyone else wants to try it out let me know. The change was minor and I've done some testing with my default configuration and think it works.

Without any discoveries in the next few days I should be able to release Extinstall-2.1.

-bill

PS. Shows how much people in this board really use FAV. There's been no reports of this bug in over 3 years on any of the AdvCodeFormat=Long remotes! Amazing

[vickyg2003]

I just built a new version that fixes this and sent it to Liz for testing. If anyone else wants to try it out let me know. The change was minor and I've done some testing with my default configuration and think it works.

Without any discoveries in the next few days I should be able to release Extinstall-2.1.

I'd like to test. Is there a link?

PS. Shows how much people in this board really use FAV. There's been no reports of this bug in over 3 years on any of the AdvCodeFormat=Long remotes! Amazing

Well the FAV in an unextended remote is pretty much useless. Especially with the 2 second delay, and the new hd tuners taking almost that long to tune in a channel.

But really there just plain are not that many people using extenders period! I figure only 1 of every 3 downloads are actually going to be used, the rest are idle curiosity, or reloads. Even that may be optimistic, when it comes to extender usage. I wish we could promote extender use more. I know that I was extremely reluctant to get involved with extenders when myself, so I understand why just the hardcore uses them.

[mathdon]

Without any discoveries in the next few days I should be able to release Extinstall-2.1.

Please post the source files at the same time. I am in the process of linking Greg's Java port of Extinstall-2 into RMIR and will want to make corresponding fixes to his Java code.