Saturday 5 June 2021

E2B v2.09h Beta available

 E2B sorts payload files alphanumerically, so Ubuntu.iso will be listed after Tails.iso in the E2B menu.

E2B also supports filename prefixes in the form of  _*_ (underscore - any number of characters - underscore), e.g.:

_100_Ubuntu.iso
_110_Tails.iso

These will be listed in the E2B menu as:

Tails
Ubuntu

File extension override suffixes

You can also add file extension override suffixes, these too will not be displayed in the E2B menu system, e.g.

Format:  _ (file extension _ [agfm (agfm file extension)] . file-extension

_100_Ubuntu_.isodef_agfmisoagfm.iso
_110_Tails_.isodef_agfmismap.iso

The agfm file override is optional. If not specified then the first file suffix will be used for both E2B and agFM - e.g. _100_Ubuntu_.isodef.iso.

These will be listed in the E2B menu as:

Tails
Ubuntu

BUT both agFM and Ventoy will list the full filename. 

E2B will boot as if the file had a .isodef file extension, agFM will boot as if the file had a .isoagfm (or .isomap) file extension.

Note: If E2B MyE2B.cfg is configured to show the file extension (EXTOFF) then E2B shows the whole filename but without the prefix - e.g. Ubuntu_.isodef_agfmisoagfm.iso.

Hotkeys

E2B has two menu selection aids, One is to just type in the menu entry number in order to jump to that menu (e.g. press 4 to jump to menu #4, press 1 and then 4 to jump to menu #14).

The second hotkey mechanism is that the first letter of the menu entry displayed is also a hotkey, so you can press 'U' and it will jump to the first menu entry beginning with the letter U.

There is also a first-letter hotkey feature in agFM, however it only works with letters and does not work with _ (underscore) or numbers.

This means if we have named our file as _100_Ubuntu.iso then we cannot use the first-letter hotkey feature in agFM.

Solution

The solution is to ensure that the first character of a payload file is always a letter so that we can jump to it in the agFM system. So E2B now supports a new filename prefix format:

xxx_    - where xxx can be any three characters and fourth character must be an underscore _

e.g.

a23_Ubuntu.iso
a44_Tails.iso
d33_Acronis.iso

The E2B menu system will display:

Ubuntu
Tails
Acronis

agFM and Ventoy will always display the full filenames, however in agFM we can now press 'A' to jump to a23_Ubuntu.iso, press 'A' again to jump to a44_Tails.iso  or press 'D' to jump to d33_Acronis.iso.

The hotkey is not case sensitive, so d33_ and D33_ behave the same.

So E2B v2.09h now supports this new prefix format by not displaying the prefix part of the filename in the E2B menus..

Let me know what you think!




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