Wednesday 29 January 2014

Easy2Boot v1.25 available (new $HOME$ keyword for .mnu files)

Easy2Boot v1.25 adds a new feature for .mnu files.

Previously, you had to 'hard code' the sub-folder name into the .mnu file text. For example, here is a typical .mnu file which expects the ISO file to be in the MNU subfolder (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\MNU) :

iftitle [if exist %MFOLDER%/MNU/Ylmf_OS_3.0.iso] Boot YlmF (Windows Like OS) Non-Persistent 
map %MFOLDER%/MNU/Ylmf_OS_3.0.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper  persistent iso-scan/filename=%MFOLDER%/MNU/ylmf_OS_3.0.iso floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 splash
initrd /casper/initrd.img

However, now we can use $HOME$ to represent the path of the .mnu file like this:

iftitle [if exist $HOME$/Ylmf_OS_3.0.iso] Boot YlmF (Windows Like OS) Non-Persistent 
map $HOME$/Ylmf_OS_3.0.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper  persistent iso-scan/filename=$HOME$/ylmf_OS_3.0.iso floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 splash
initrd /casper/initrd.img


This means that we can place the .mnu files and their payload files in any sub-folder of any name and we don't have to edit the .mnu file to match it.

This is useful because it means we can control the order of the items in the menus more easily by simply changing the name of the folders that we place our .mnu files in.

Consider an E2B file and folder arrangement of:

\_ISO\MAINMENU\b.iso
\_ISO\MAINMENU\k.iso
\_ISO\MAINMENU\MNU\a.mnu  (and a.iso)
\_ISO\MAINMENU\MNU\y.mnu  (and y.iso)
\_ISO\MAINMENU\z.iso

The menu entries in the Main menu would be ordered like this because the MNU folder's files will be enumerated after k.iso:

b.iso
k.iso
(title text from the a.mnu file)
(title text from the y.mnu file)
z.iso


Now if we want the a.mnu entry to be listed first in the Main menu, previously when using the %MFOLDER% variable, we would have had to make a new $MNU folder and then move the a.mnu and a.iso files also edit the .mnu file to change 'MNU' to '$MNU'.

However, if we use the new $HOME$ keyword in the .mnu file, all we need do is move the a.iso and a.mnu files to a new $MNU folder and we don't have to edit the .mnu file at all.

\_ISO\MAINMENU\$MNU\a.mnu  (and a.iso)
\_ISO\MAINMENU\b.iso
\_ISO\MAINMENU\k.iso
\_ISO\MAINMENU\MNU\y.mnu  (and y.iso)
\_ISO\MAINMENU\z.iso

The keyword $HOME$ will be expanded by E2B to be "/_ISO/MAINMENU/$MNU" automatically.

If you also want to change the position of y.mnu, you can simply rename the MNU folder (e.g. use $A to list it first or ZZ to list it last in the menu).

I have changed all of the Sample mnu Files in the \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files folder in v1.25 of E2B to use the new $HOME$ keyword. You can still use %MFOLDER% in your .mnu files if you wish.

The new v1.25 downloads are linked here.








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