"Advanced Options --> Replace hbmenu on exit" does not work correctly in Version 0.5.0

[muxi1]

If this option is activated, it can no longer be deactivated. sphaira is started even though the option has been set to ‘deactivated’ again.

[ITotalJustice]

The way the option works is that, when enabled, it will first backup a copy of hbmenu in/switch/hbmenu.nro and then copy sphaira in it's place.

When disabled, it simply stops doing the above.

The issue with option is that it doesn't currently feature a way to restore hbmenu when disabling it. I'll look into how best to handle this.

I have thought about displaying a pop up on disable, asking if they wish to restore hbmenu. On confirm, backup sphaira, restore hbmenu, and then exit sphaira to the main menu.

[muxi1]

Is it not possible to simply copy the ‘switch/hbmenu.nro’ back into the SD card root and overwrite the file located there if the option is deactivated again?

[ITotalJustice]

Is it not possible to simply copy the ‘switch/hbmenu.nro’ back into the SD card root and overwrite the file located there if the option is deactivated again?

Yes, that is what I suggested I could do. It would need to backup sphaira if needed, as some users may only have sphaira installed as hbmenu, so restoring actual hbmenu would permanently delete sphaira. Exiting after restoring hbmenu whilst sphaira has been launched as hbmenu is needed as it means the romfs mounting will no longer work (the file is gone) and other misc details in the code that would break.

[muxi1]

Perhaps it would be better to select the config folder or the switch/sphaira/ folder as the backup/restore destination, so that someone doesn't get the idea of deleting hbmenu.nro from the switch folder?

Edit:
or even better directly in the ‘atmosphere’ folder, because nobody will delete anything there without further ado.

[ITotalJustice]

Perhaps it would be better to select the config folder or the switch/sphaira/ folder as the backup destination, so that someone doesn't get the idea of deleting hbmenu.nro from the switch folder?

If the hbmenu.nro doesn't exist, and the user selected the option to restore it, then I would probably show an error message explaining that it wasn't found, and that they can re-download it from the appstore.

[muxi1]

The hbmenu.nro will always remain in the SD card root, as it is only overwritten, either with sphaira or the regular hbmenu. Or am I making a mistake?

Ah, I see. You're talking about when a backup is accidentally or deliberately deleted and then an attempt is made to restore it.

[ITotalJustice]

The hbmenu.nro will always remain in the SD card root, as it is only overwritten, either with sphaira or the regular hbmenu. Or am I making a mistake?

Ah, I see. You're talking about when a backup is accidentally or deliberately deleted and then an attempt is made to restore it.

Yes the later (I should've specified /switch/hbmenu.nro 😄). I'll look into adding this today

[muxi1]

Thank you very much, also for this fantastic tool!

[ITotalJustice]

the prompt to restore:

on success (launched not as hbmenu)

on success (launched as hbmenu)

on failure (/switch/hbmenu.nro not found)

some other error handling in place.

• if sphaira fails to back itself up, it is not flagged as an error, as the user probably doesnt plan to use it again, hence restoring hbmenu. this should never fail anyway.
• in the event that /switch/hbmenu exists, but it fails to restore it, it will restore sphaira back instead as a fail-safe. on success: "Failed to restore hbmenu, using sphaira instead". on failure: "Failed to restore hbmenu, please re-download hbmenu"

those 2 errors are only triggered upon fs corruption or a ftp/mtp server opening the file, blocking access to read/write said files. so no one will ever see these errors, but there is handling for them, just in case

[muxi1]

Hi ITotalJustice,
I would like to compile the current source code with Msys2. I have already installed CMake (pacman -S cmake) . Could you please tell me which command I have to enter to compile this tool? Many thanks in advance and all the best for the new year.

[ITotalJustice]

Hi ITotalJustice, I would like to compile the current source code with Msys2. I have already installed CMake (pacman -S cmake) . Could you please tell me which command I have to enter to compile this tool? Many thanks in advance and all the best for the new year.

check the workflow file for how to build it, or look at the build_release.sh

[muxi1]

Excuse me, but I know next to nothing about programming. So far I have always compiled a tool with ‘make’ in a source code folder. CMake is something else and I have absolutely no idea what to enter in the terminal. I have looked at build_release.sh, but I don't know what to do with it. And what is the ‘workflow file’? Can't you just tell me the corresponding line that I have to enter?

Edit:
I don't want to cause you too much trouble and will wait for a new release of your tool.

[shadow2560]

Excuse me, but I know next to nothing about programming. So far I have always compiled a tool with ‘make’ in a source code folder. CMake is something else and I have absolutely no idea what to enter in the terminal. I have looked at build_release.sh, but I don't know what to do with it. And what is the ‘workflow file’? Can't you just tell me the corresponding line that I have to enter?

Edit: I don't want to cause you too much trouble and will wait for a new release of your tool.

You can go to the workflows page, select the commit you want (the last one is the first proposed in the list) and there you will find the nro compiled automaticaly when a new modification is done on the project.

To compile the sources yourself you must setup Devkitpro with the switch-dev environment, open the Devkitpro terminal and type "cmake --preset MinSizeRel" then "cmake --build --preset MinSizeRel" but in some of my tests compilation of the project on Windows work the first time but make some errors the second time (haven't tested it with the last versions so I don't know if this problem is always present) so I've setuped my environment with wsl and like that it works but it's more complicated. So if you're not a dev prefers to go to the workflows page.

[muxi1]

@ITotalJustice @shadow2560 Happy new year! To get straight to the point: I am not at all familiar with Github and its possibilities. I don't understand how you can automatically create an nro. Since this is not a minor issue, but a serious error in an option that cannot be undone, I think it would make sense to publish a new version. What do you think?

[shadow2560]

It's a new feature, not a bug as explained earlier in this topic, we've also discussed of this in #41.
Also there are some discussions that are not closed, like #64 or new things that will be added like #67 or probably some translations to update, like you can see there are many reasons to not publish a new version for now.

[muxi1]

Well, at least a restore of the original Homebrew menu is currently not possible. So deactivating sphaira does not work either once you have activated it as standard. Incidentally, it is the only option that does not currently work. If that's not a reason for an update, then I don't know....
Fortunately, the original homebrew menu is available as a backup app to select in shpaira, which makes things satisfactory for me as a temporary solution at the moment. The fact is that there are many users who have hidden apps in other folders of the SD card root, but these are not accessible via shpaira, as only the apps in the switch folder are taken into account.

One of my suggestions would be to offer the option in the main menu to access the root level of the SD card via B in order to be able to switch to another folder containing apps.

[shadow2560]

To access homebrews that are not in a standard path you have the file explorer witch is capable to also launch nro files but yes adding the possibility to display homebrews in a custom path the same way as the HBMenu do it could be a good add, it's a problem witch has been already discussed in an other issue.
For a new version I think this will be done soon.

[muxi1]

Interesting! I didn't know that it was possible to start homebrews in other locations via the file browser. Cool!