Announcing user-friendly "time slider" tool for HAMMER v1 (version 2.00)

[John Marino]

On 12/22/2014 15:53, John Marino wrote:
> I've created a curses-based tool called "slider" that is user-friendly
> combination between "hammer history" and "undo".  If the given path
> doesn't exist but has history, an "undelete" attempt can be made.
> However, if the given path has multiple versions, each timestamp will be
> displayed and selectable via arrow keys.  If the origin file is text,
> any version can be "viewed" in pages, and a colorized diff between any
> two versions can be viewed.  It's easy to save any listed version as a
> new file or to restore the given path with any previous version.
> However doesn't handle deleted directories (yet).
> 
> I created it because I found browsing through historical versions very
> cumbersome (dumping transactions IDs and manually viewing each one via
> command line).  Undeleting a file wasn't as simple as I'd have liked
> either.  Hopefully other people will find the tool useful.
> 
> Feedback and/or bug reports welcome! [3]
> 
> It's in dports at sysutils/slider, so you can get it by either:
> 1) pkg ins sysutils/slider                        [1]
> 2) cd /usr/dports/sysutils/slider ; make install  [2]
> 
> Usage: slider file [save-as-file]
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> 
> [1] Available now for DragonFly 4.1, soon for DragonFly 4.0
> [2] The dependencies of lang/gcc-aux and devel/adacurses take a long
> time to build so it's advisable to "pkg add lang/gcc-aux" to save a lot
> of time when building slider from source.
> [3] I already know about the unhandled exception that occurs when trying
> to view the diff between two identical versions of the file.  The fix
> will be available via source build first.


I've just pushed version 2.00 of Slider.  It's currently available via
source build only, but I'll try to add it to 4.0 and 4.2 packages later
tonight.

The major feature that got added was the ability to scan an existing
directory for deleted files and subdirectories and it lists all that it
finds.  Deleted subdirectories can be restored as a unit, and slider can
list the first level of subdirectory contents before restoring it.
Selecting a file candidate for undeletion from the list will work as
version 1.00 did when the path was given via the command line.

As before, Slider focuses on the most recent version for undeletion if
it finds multiple good versions.  As before, I only was able to perform
limited testing so I'm definitely looking for feedback on issues / bugs
/ exceptions that users may encounter.

John