Software information: SparkFS (self-extracting)

Overview

SparkFS provides a general purpose RISC OS file system interface to access the contents of compressed archives and similar file formats (such as zip and tar).

SparkFS is an image filing system – objects (in this case archives) will behave like directories when SparkFS is loaded. For example, Filer will look inside archives when searching a directory tree.

Installation Instructions

Download the self-extracting archive and set its filetype to Utility (&FFC). Double-click on the file to unpack its contents: the !SparkFS application can then be dragged to the directory of your choice (!SparkFS is usually installed in $.Utilities in the standard HardDisc4 build).

If you have been using an older version of SparkFS, ensure it has been fully unloaded (“Quit > FS too” from the SparkFS icon bar menu) before starting this version of SparkFS.

Issues

• SparkFS may run out of memory when processing a large (or complex) archive. If this happens, click Menu on the SparkFS icon bar icon and choose Choices. Drag the Maximum bar to the right to increase the maximum memory: a value of 16MB should be sufficient for most needs.

• ZIP compression/decompression does not multi-task efficiently. With very large archives (e.g. “RISC OS Pi”, which unpacks to give a 2GB image) the computer can apparently freeze for upwards of 4 minutes during the process.

If you are experiencing other problems with this software, first check to see if a ticket has been raised on the Bug tracker page. You may also want to visit the Bugs forum.

If you have a general query related to the software, you can enquire on the Community Support forum.

History of the component

To view the release history for the SparkFS front end, visit the GitLab Commits page (releases are “tagged” with the version number).

To view the release history for each component module, visit the module source page, drill down to the desired module (e.g. SparkZip) and click on the “Commits” link.

Obtaining the software

This software is usually supplied as part of the standard HardDisc4 build.

To obtain the self-extracting version of the software, visit the Miscellaneous downloads page.

To obtain the software packaged as a ZIP file, visit the Packages server.

To obtain the source code for the SparkFS front end, visit the GitLab source page.
Source code for the SparkFS module (and individual codec modules such as SparkTar) can be found here.