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- Introduction:
-
- xpkbest is a very little cli-only utility that checks whether a file should be
- packed with the xpkNUKE, or the xpkSMPL-library. I use it to pack my modules.
- Some modules get a better compression-ratio with NUKE, others with SMPL.
-
- I made it because I was checking by hand all the time and it was a lot of typing
- and you even had to THINK while doing it! (comparing 2 ratios is quite some
- thinking ;-) I know it's just a quick and dirty memory-hungry hack, but it works
- for me! I configured DOpus with a button 'Pack' and that does the trick. No more
- typing!
-
- Features:
- - Takes 1 file as parameter. If you need to do a whole directory, you can use
- 'spat xpkbest #?' (spat is supplied with 2.0+ I think)
- or use DOpus with the 'Do all files'-option.
- - Original file will be overwritten with the compressed one. If a file can't
- be overwritten, a file with the extension '.nuke' or '.smpl' will be saved
- instead.
- - Testing with xpkNUKE and xpkSMPL-library.
- - It won't try files that are already packed.
- - It reads the original file in memory and allocates 2 additional buffers: one
- for NUKE, and one for SMPL. So you need free memory roughly 3 times the size
- of the original file. Since I have plenty of memory and don't use files larger
- than 1 Mb, that's no problem to me ;-)
- - The creation date will be preserved
- - The crunch-process is running at priority -1, so you can easily crunch your
- entire modules-collection in the background.
- - Filenames (including path) shouldn't be longer than 255 characters.
- - Written in AmigaE (Thanks go to Wouter van Oortmerssen!)
- - OS V36+ (Kickstart 2.0+) is needed. On lower versions xpkbest just quits
- without a message.
-
- Future:
-
- Okay, you're right: There's a lot of room for improvement. Right now I don't
- need anymore features, but if you want me to I'll improve (if you don't ask too
- much) Possible things I might add:
-
- - file-patterns as an argument
- - selectable library-names
- - selectable priority
- - selectable overwrite, (maybe a source and destination-dir?)
- - Config-file
- - GUI (if you ask really nice...)
- - Low-memoryhandling. Write temporary-files to (hard)disk
- - ....
-
-
- Bug reports, contacting author:
-
- I'd love to hear whether you like this or not. If the response is good enough I
- will go on improving it. If there's no need to improve it, I won't. There are
- other things to do and it's usefull for me as it is now. Let me know anyway if
- you use it. That's all I'm asking.
-
- This is E-Mailware, but if you feel the urge to send me money, gifts,
- 68060-boards, 21"-monitors, or a new Ferrari, I don't mind. Anything is welcome!
-
-
-
- Here's my address:
-
- Jaco Schoonen
-
- Internet: jaco@stack.urc.tue.nl (reply guaranteed)
-
- Snail mail:
-
- Jaco Schoonen
- Sibeliuslaan 45
- 5654 CZ Eindhoven
- The Netherlands
-
- If there aren't thousands of letters I will reply the snail mail as well. I don't
- expect thousands of letters so I guess that this guarantees a reply-letter as well.
-
-