"AM" 8.1

[ivan-hc]

• allow "AppMan" to be installed/used outside "$HOME", by @Samueru-sama
• allow "AM" support for distro packagers

[ivan-hc]

The piece that must be changed to made distro packagers bundle "AM" is this

# "AM" CORE VARIABLES
function _am() {
	AMCLI="am"
	AMCLIPATH="$AMCLI"
	if command -v sudo >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="sudo"
	elif command -v doas >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="doas"
	else
		echo 'ERROR: No sudo or doas found'
		exit 1
	fi
	APPSPATH="/opt"
	AMPATH="$APPSPATH/$AMCLI"
	_create_cache_dir
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
	mkdir -p "$MODULES_PATH" || exit 1
}

# DETERMINE WHEN TO USE "AM" OR "APPMAN"
if [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/opt/am/APP-MANAGER" ]; then
	_am
elif [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_am
else
	_appman
fi

The only variable interested to this support is "MODULES_PATH", the one containing the modules.

Note that the change wants you to rename the script APP-MANAGER to "am", if you want to put it in /usr/bin as /usr/bin/am

All depend on how you want to install AM into a distro package.

it would be sufficient to change the above behaviour like this

# "AM" CORE VARIABLES
function _am() {
	AMCLI="am"
	AMCLIPATH="$AMCLI"
	if command -v sudo >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="sudo"
	elif command -v doas >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="doas"
	else
		echo 'ERROR: No sudo or doas found'
		exit 1
	fi
	APPSPATH="/opt"
	AMPATH="$APPSPATH/$AMCLI"
	_create_cache_dir
}

# DETERMINE WHEN TO USE "AM" OR "APPMAN"
if [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/opt/am/APP-MANAGER" ]; then
	_am
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
	mkdir -p "$MODULES_PATH" || exit 1
elif [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_am
	AMPATH="/usr/lib/am"
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
else
	_appman
fi

what it does is to check if the command "am" is /usr/bin/am

"AMPATH" is needed to determine the directory where also the modules will be installed, at this point I don't know if we still have to determine "MODULES_PATH".

"AMPATH" if available as a non RW directory will prevent the update of AM and the modules. They all will be managed by the package manager you are creating the package for.

According to the above function, this would be the structure of a package:

/usr/bin/am
/usr/lib/am/modules/database.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/install.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/management.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/sandboxes.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/template.am

of course, as suggested by @Samueru-sama , other options for "AMPATH" would be /usr/bin/AM, /usr/lib/AM, /usr/libexec/AM, or /var/lib/AM. Its up to you.

Since this feature was asked by you two first, I'd like to have your opinion @fiftydinar and @vitaly-zdanevich

Let me know.

[ivan-hc]

I think it should solve also #826 then

[ivan-hc]

@Samueru-sama should this be enough also to determine where the modules must be saved?

# "AM" CORE VARIABLES
function _am() {
	AMCLI="am"
	AMCLIPATH="$AMCLI"
	if command -v sudo >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="sudo"
	elif command -v doas >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="doas"
	else
		echo 'ERROR: No sudo or doas found'
		exit 1
	fi
	APPSPATH="/opt"
	AMPATH="$APPSPATH/$AMCLI"
	_create_cache_dir
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
}

# DETERMINE WHEN TO USE "AM" OR "APPMAN"
if [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/opt/am/APP-MANAGER" ]; then
	_am
	mkdir -p "$MODULES_PATH" || exit 1
elif [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_am
	AMPATH="/usr/lib/am"
else
	_appman
fi

EDIT: just tested, nope, I must set again MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules", like this

# "AM" CORE VARIABLES
function _am() {
	AMCLI="am"
	AMCLIPATH="$AMCLI"
	if command -v sudo >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="sudo"
	elif command -v doas >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="doas"
	else
		echo 'ERROR: No sudo or doas found'
		exit 1
	fi
	APPSPATH="/opt"
	AMPATH="$APPSPATH/$AMCLI"
	_create_cache_dir
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
}

# DETERMINE WHEN TO USE "AM" OR "APPMAN"
if [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/opt/am/APP-MANAGER" ]; then
	_am
	mkdir -p "$MODULES_PATH" || exit 1
elif [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_am
	AMPATH="/usr/lib/am"
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
else
	_appman
fi

[ivan-hc]

also, I noticed that if I don't set a valid RW AMPATH, any option will ask for root password, also in AppMan Mode

so this should be the way to go

# "AM" CORE VARIABLES
function _am() {
	AMCLI="am"
	AMCLIPATH="$AMCLI"
	if command -v sudo >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="sudo"
	elif command -v doas >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		SUDOCMD="doas"
	else
		echo 'ERROR: No sudo or doas found'
		exit 1
	fi
	APPSPATH="/opt"
	AMPATH="$APPSPATH/$AMCLI"
	_create_cache_dir
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
}

# DETERMINE WHEN TO USE "AM" OR "APPMAN"
if [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/opt/am/APP-MANAGER" ]; then
	_am
	mkdir -p "$MODULES_PATH" || exit 1
elif [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_am
	AMPATH="/usr/lib/am"
	MODULES_PATH="$AMPATH/modules"
else
	_appman
fi

about replacing /usr/lib/am with something else, its up to you @fiftydinar and @vitaly-zdanevich

[ivan-hc]

Maybe I should allow usage of some functions as root (for example, updating the apps) instead of suggesting to use appman mode

[fiftydinar]

/usr/bin/am
/usr/lib/am/modules/database.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/install.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/management.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/sandboxes.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/template.am

I agree with this hierarchy & code looks good

Will test further in my test image how well it works when this gets merged

[ivan-hc]

just started tests on a VM of Debian Stable with the following structure

/usr/bin/am
/usr/lib/am/modules/database.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/install.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/management.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/sandboxes.am
/usr/lib/am/modules/template.am

and the obstacle I had was this function

if [ "$AMCLI" = am ]; then
	if test -f "$APPMANCONFIG"/appman-mode; then
		[ ! -f "$APPMANCONFIG"/appman-config ] && echo -e "$APPMAN_MSG"
		_appman
		AMCLIPATH="$(realpath "$0")"
	elif [ ! -w "$AMPATH" ]; then
		read -r -p " \"AM\" is read-only, want to use it in \"AppMan Mode\" (Y,n)? " yn
		if echo "$yn" | grep -i '^n' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
			exit 0
		else
			echo -e "$DIVIDING_LINE\n \"AppMan Mode\" enabled! \n$DIVIDING_LINE"
			_use_appman 1>/dev/null
		fi
	fi
fi

that prompts me this

I had to remove the "elif" to run -f normally

so now I need a suggestion for that function

[ivan-hc]

Just finished to test in VM the new behaviour, all works as expected, also AppMan Mode

Some notes:

1. to allow /usr/bin/am to be used without the warning of rw permissions (see above) I had to set AMPATH to a RW directory, in this case $AMCACHEDIR, i.e. $HOME/.cache/am

# DETERMINE WHEN TO USE "AM" OR "APPMAN"
if [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/opt/am/APP-MANAGER" ]; then
	_am
	mkdir -p "$MODULES_PATH" || exit 1
elif [ "$(realpath "$0")" = "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_am
	AMPATH="$AMCACHEDIR"
	MODULES_PATH="/usr/lib/am/modules"
else
	_appman
fi

2. what made "AM" installed as /usr/bin/am really different from the normal /opt/am/APP-MANAGER simlinked in /usr/local/bin/am is the fact that can't be updated

function _use_sync() {
	_online_check
	_betatester_message_on
	_sync_installation_scripts
	if [ "$(realpath "$0")" != "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
		_sync_modules
		_sync_amcli
	fi
}

the function "_use_sync" is the function responsible of updating AM and modules, so the command am -s, also included in am -u.

Normally it does three things:

• compares local copies of the installation scripts of the installed apps with the ones online (to warn users that something is changed in the installation script, maybe the source is changed or a better way to install it has been applied), and the responsible is the sub-function "_sync_installation_scripts", that /usr/bin/am will be still able to use
• updates modules, sub-function "_sync_modules"
• updates itself, sub-functions "_sync_amcli"

well, since a package for a distro would be shipped fith its own copies of "AM" and modules, according with the structure above... you don't need to use "_sync_modules" and "_sync_amcli"

if [ "$(realpath "$0")" != "/usr/bin/am" ]; then
	_sync_modules
	_sync_amcli
fi

that said, if it is OK for you, I can merge this to main and release it as AM 8.1

[ivan-hc]

This is a demo video where I test various things... apart Chromium that does not run in sandbox, but AM works also in appman mode.

Note that normal AM shows that can manage also AM among the installed apps shown with -f, while this special version does not list it... so @vitaly-zdanevich this also solves the irrue of am -R am, completelly

simplescreenrecorder-2024-08-29_04.23.37.mkv.mp4

[ivan-hc]

Time to merge.