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Hi Jon,
Downloading the JASPP zip files for Cannon Fodder and Lemmings the other day to play on Arculator RISC OS 3.1 I found the ADFFS behaviour with the disk images a little odd and recalled I've felt similarly previously.

The disk images both uncompressed as &FFD type data files using SparkFS and when I drag them onto the ADFFS iconbar icon they don't appear to open. I had to manually set the filetype to one of the types ADFFS handles (I forget which, I think I just picked one from the !Sprites file icons) and then can double-click it and ADFFS opens the filer window for the disk image so I can play the game. I was expecting behaviour more akin to that from SparkFS i.e. drag to the iconbar icon sets the disk image filetype correctly and opens the disk image file. Am I thinking of it in the wrong way or is there a reason why ADFFS doesn't behave like that?

The archive ZIP's are created on a PC, so there's no embedded RISC OS filetypes.

I don't believe Arculator translates DOS filetypes between Windows and RISC OS, so you'd need to either rename them as ",fce" on the PC side or set them to "Floppy" on the RISC OS side.

JonAbbott wrote: ↑Mon Dec 30, 2024 8:14 pm The archive ZIP's are created on a PC, so there's no embedded RISC OS filetypes.

I don't believe Arculator translates DOS filetypes between Windows and RISC OS, so you'd need to either rename them as ",ffd" on the PC side or set them to "Floppy" on the RISC OS side.

Thanks Jon, I see now they've all got .jfd filenames in the zip file. I note ADFFS is setting up DOSMap to map those extensions to &FCE when it's run but that doesn't seem to do much at least on RISC OS 3.7/3.1 AFAICT.

Would it be feasible/sensible to adjust ADFFS to attempt to load the file dragged to it's icon even if it's not of type Floppy so the JFD files of type &FFD can just be loaded directly without type having to be set first?

Ideally there'd be a way to get RISC OS to interpret DOS extensions and execute them as RISC OS filetypes if there's no run-type specified for their RISC OS filetype but I don't know of anything that does that off the shelf?

dpsharp wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2024 12:15 am ADFFS is setting up DOSMap to map those extensions to &FCE when it's run but that doesn't seem to do much at least on RISC OS 3.7/3.1 AFAICT.

They provide mapping for files transferred via FAT, FTP, HTTP etc.

dpsharp wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2024 12:15 am Would it be feasible/sensible to adjust ADFFS to attempt to load the file dragged to it's icon even if it's not of type Floppy so the JFD files of type &FFD can just be loaded directly without type having to be set first?

I can probably do that for JFD, but not for ADF as there's no way to validate it.

dpsharp wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2024 12:15 am Ideally there'd be a way to get RISC OS to interpret DOS extensions and execute them as RISC OS filetypes

DOSMap does that, your problem is particular to HostFS on Arculator, which doesn't provide taylored filetype mapping. I personally use Red Squirrel for all my development as that does include configurable filetype mapping for HostFS.

To test Arculator I have to manually copy duplicates of Modules and Floppy images into Arculator's HostFS and then manually change all the extensions...it really makes Arculator painful to use with a host filesystem.

JonAbbott wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2024 7:19 am I can probably do that for JFD, but not for ADF as there's no way to validate it.

I'd certainly appreciate it for JFDs, it would be helpful for me on old RISC OS hardware too.

JonAbbott wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2024 7:19 am DOSMap does that, your problem is particular to HostFS on Arculator, which doesn't provide taylored filetype mapping. I personally use Red Squirrel for all my development as that does include configurable filetype mapping for HostFS.

To test Arculator I have to manually copy duplicates of Modules and Floppy images into Arculator's HostFS and then manually change all the extensions...it really makes Arculator painful to use with a host filesystem.

Thanks Jon, that does sound a bit painful! I'm stuck with rpcemu/arculator on Mac/Linux so will keep an eye out for it. I've got RS/VirtualRPC on Windows so will remind myself how that behaves at some point.