Menu selection shell script - example USB tools sub-menu

[ploupipoulpi]

Hi guys,

I was playing around making a color theme selection menu for LGPT and I felt like the apps menu is quite full now with the various USB scripts.
So I adapted what I was doing and came up with a little menu selection that allows me to have only one link to this in the menu istead of USB HID, USB MTD, USB HOST, USB SERIAL and JOYMAP

As I couldn't find a way to capture A and B from the shell, using python might be overengineering (although I did rely on gpt a lot) but it works fine.

List of paths and names to be stored in a text file, menu displays the list, A or start to run, B to quit.

Thanks a lot to Apaczer for all the right info, that helped a lot. The tty hack you pointed me to can be used in many ways.
I experimented with st as well but it doesn't look as good.
I wish I had an easier way to capture A and B presses, as it takes a second to display the menu as it imports "keyboard" in python I guess.
I have an equivalent working script without python that loads instantly and looks slightly snappier, but it only works with the start button.
If you know of a better way, let me know! In any case, even with the 1s loading at launch I like that better than an apps menu with a lot of USB related tools (plus it makes making a new theme easier, less backdrops for a gameshow like theme)

usblinks.txt to be formatted
linkname1 path1
linkname2 path2
..
linknamen pathn

Script is launched through normal gmenu link such as:
title=testpython
description=testpython
exec=/mnt/testscript.sh

#!/bin/busybox sh


# Initialize variables
input="usblinks.txt"
names=""
paths=""
index=0

# Load names and associated paths from the input file
while IFS= read -r line; do
    name=$(echo "$line" | cut -d' ' -f1)
    path=$(echo "$line" | cut -d' ' -f2-)
    eval "names_$index=\"$name\""
    eval "paths_$index=\"$path\""
    index=$((index + 1))
done < "$input"
num_items=$index

# Generate the Python script for the menu
cat << 'EOF' > menu.py
import os
import keyboard

names = [
EOF

# Append names array to the Python script
index=0
while [ $index -lt $num_items ]; do
    eval "name=\$names_$index"
    echo "    \"$name\"," >> menu.py
    index=$((index + 1))
done

cat << 'EOF' >> menu.py
]

paths = [
EOF

# Append paths array to the Python script
index=0
while [ $index -lt $num_items ]; do
    eval "path=\$paths_$index"
    echo "    \"$path\"," >> menu.py
    index=$((index + 1))
done

cat << 'EOF' >> menu.py
]

def print_menu(selected_index):
    os.system('clear')
    print("\033[?25l", end="")  # Hide cursor
    print("\033[32;40m----------------------------------------\033[0m")
    print("\033[32;40m-               USB APPS               -\033[0m")
    print("\033[32;40m----------------------------------------\033[0m")
    print("\033[32;40m                                        \033[0m")
    print("\033[32;40mPress A or Start to run, B to quit\033[0m\n")
    for i, name in enumerate(names):
        if i == selected_index:
            print(f"\033[30;42m{name}\033[0m")
        else:
            print(f"\033[32;40m{name}\033[0m")

def main():
    selected_index = 0
    print_menu(selected_index)

    while True:
        if keyboard.is_pressed('up'):
            if selected_index > 0:
                selected_index -= 1
                print_menu(selected_index)
            while keyboard.is_pressed('up'):
                pass
        elif keyboard.is_pressed('down'):
            if selected_index < len(names) - 1:
                selected_index += 1
                print_menu(selected_index)
            while keyboard.is_pressed('down'):
                pass
        elif keyboard.is_pressed('enter') or keyboard.is_pressed('alt'):
            os.system('clear')
            print(f"Running script: {paths[selected_index]}")
            os.system(f"sh {paths[selected_index]}")
            break
        elif keyboard.is_pressed('ctrl'):
            os.system('clear')
            print("Quitting...")
            break
    print("\033[?25h", end="")  # Show cursor

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
EOF

# Save current terminal settings
stty -g > /tmp/stty-settings

# Disable terminal echo
stty -echo

# Run the Python script and redirect all its output to the terminal
python menu.py &>$(tty)

# Restore terminal settings
stty $(cat /tmp/stty-settings)

[Apaczer]

👍 @ploupipoulpi, the target idea I described here: #590 for least end-user pain.

Cool you're experiminting with python/scripting, this is always a path to learn useful stuff. BTW we have also pygame_menu module, to display graphic selection menu (see example: MiyooCFW/buildroot#72 (comment)), however the loading time is less than acceptable and haven't figure out yet to reduce it, other than rewriting code in C and compiling.

About another script method...the "start" button on a device is a RETURN keyboard key and frankly I don't think you can swap it with another - that is if operating on a pure shell. Anyway not a python guy here.

[ploupipoulpi]

That's a nice plan for the USB stuff! Do you also have special plans for the audio recording script?

In shell only it works fine, but I don't really like the dynamic of launching something from Gmenu with A, then get to a menu where I run things with the start button (I could get a few others to work in shell but obviously not A). It's ok the python I'm using has an ok loading time for what I'm doing with LGPT.
I'll try the pygame menu to compare loading time, I know nothing about that one.

Thanks !

[Apaczer]

Do you also have special plans for the audio recording script

Probably will remove it from main menu and just plainly add to daemon's hotkey, the same for video record I think...not decided yet.

the python I'm using has an ok loading time

You should stick to python I think, there is python3 -m compileall for precompilling scripts then python3 -B -u (not much of speed-up), or u can reduce I/O reads of interpreter by not loading side-packages python3 -S (see: https://bitbakesoda.blogspot.com/2019/03/speedup-python-on-embedded-systems.html). That's most far I've got.

BTW: for keyboard module we can thank @tiopex for adding it to img build. It comes in handy from what I can see.