Questions about downloading files, usage tips, and peripheral interfacing

[paperky]

I'm currently playing a modpack with a group of friends that includes CC:Tweaked, for 1.20.1 NeoForge, and have a few questions with using the mod mainly concerning transferring files (both to and from the CC computer), interfacing with peripherals, and any tips or features I might not be aware of that might help.

My current goal is to manage a line of machines, being able to extend the "bank" of machines easily.
Machine A produces 6 redstone with a 50% chance of 1 extra, and I want to divide this output into stacks of 4 (into machine B) and 2 (machine C), with the extra handled separately; I'd eventually like to tile this so I can simply add more machines side-by-side without adding more computers.

In my work to do this, I've broken the problem down and started with a function moveItems(source, dest, item, count) which takes 2 wrapped peripherals, an item name and a count as argument, does the requested move, and returns the number of items actually moved, handling multiple stacks if they exist.
In this, I also was able to use the REPL to query how the slots in the machines I'm using are enumerated by filling all slots with unique items and printing the formatted results of inventory.list to a monitor.

My testing has so far mainly been with the machines (peripherals) directly attached to the computer.
In moving to using network cables to make this tileable, I'm running into difficulty reading long output from the REPL; the built-in advanced computer screen is quite small, and it can be difficult to read the entire output.
It also seems like the peripheral number for each attached inventory is incremented as the devices are moved around; makes sense as a hardcoding prevention. I'll use tables/arrays plus peripheral.find to enumerate and loop over all attached devices.

I installed MBS, or Mildly Better Shell, which has helped a ton especially with readline bindings (in the REPL too!), the scrollback support with the mousewheel, and improved autocomplete.
If I need to read large outputs, I usually run the REPL with the monitor command and a large advanced monitor above the computer, but it's often fiddly to both type on the computer and see the monitor behind the CC "inventory" terminal.
I've been using the file transfer system to paste in local files as I develop and test, which is much faster than writing them manually in the CC terminal. Much faster development and less re-typing. It's great to load up the REPL and run require("test") and have a known state.

With that background, my questions are these:

• Is there any way to type on a CC computer without opening the CC screen, to better use external monitors for running programs? I remember long ago seeing a keyboard that did this, but I'm almost certain that wasn't a CC or CC:Tweaked device.
• While figuring out how slots are enumerated, I found that while \r and \n seem to work in a terminal, they aren't processed when calling the write method of a wrapped monitor. Is there a better way to do newlines than reading the current cursor's row, incrementing it if not at the bottom of the screen, then writing it back? My quick-and-dirty method for outputting debug and querying was to write a small function to set the cursor pos to (1, COL_MAX) and then call the scroll method of the monitor.
• Are there tools to manage the names assigned to peripherals on a network? I tried renaming a vanilla barrel in an anvil, but I couldn't find any methods for reading the barrel's name; peripheral.getName only seems to give the network name of a device, like left or right for devices directly adjacent.
• Is there a way outside of websockets to send information from CC -> my local machine? I've seen that there's the HTTP and WGET inbuilt commands, but I was wondering if anything closer to the file transfer system existed to "download" files and programs from the CC filesystem.
• Is there a way to shorten the loop of "transfer file, load repl, test, repeat"? My current workflow has been "Exit to the CraftOS shell, drag over the text file, run lua, manually type require("test") in the REPL", which is a little cumbersome at the manual-typing step.

I'll likely come up with more questions, but if I understand the Q&A section right, I can add to this later?

[Wojbie]

Is there any way to type on a CC computer without opening the CC screen, to better use external monitors for running programs? I remember long ago seeing a keyboard that did this, but I'm almost certain that wasn't a CC or CC:Tweaked device.

You can put pocket computer in offhand and r-click it. It opens it in keyboard-like gui mode. All your inputs then go to pocket. You can then write your own program that would transfer events from pocket to target computer you wish to communicate with.

I found that while \r and \n seem to work in a terminal, they aren't processed when calling the write

This kind of special character handling is build in into high level functions of print and write while direct terminal access function like term.write monitor.write ect do not do it. If you wish to utilise it you can either use term.redirect to redirect terminal output to monitor and then print and write onto it or just write your own handling and use setCursorPos for handling position of cursor manually.

Are there tools to manage the names assigned to peripherals on a network?

No there is no way to change network name of peripheral. Some players have wrote their own peripheral api overwrites that allowed them to alias names, or just abstracted that in their code but it still requires that somewhere on that computer it knows what network name its supposed to be dealing with.

Is there a way outside of websockets to send information from CC -> my local machine.

Websocket and http are only ways to do it if you don't have direct filesystem access to folder where minecraft world is saved. There is no way to directly "download" files.

Is there a way to shorten the loop of "transfer file, load repl, test, repeat"

Drag and drop is event. So you could easly write your own import program that would auto save and run the program. So your loop would become "run debug program, drag and drop file" and then have program auto save dropped file and run it/do whatever you need to test it.

EDIT: Additionally for last 2 questions. If you are developing for remote system, you might find https://remote.craftos-pc.cc/ to be of use for you? It uses websockets and allows you to locally access files that are on remote CC computer (on server) and edit/work on them. It might simplify your workflow?

[paperky]

You can put pocket computer in offhand and r-click it. It opens it in keyboard-like gui mode. All your inputs then go to pocket.

I just tried this; it's wonderful and very much like what I was hoping for. This makes a LOT of neat things possible, too, like games with local screens that can't be peeked by others. Where else can I read up about features like this that I didn't spot in the CC:T documentation?
I noticed that with this I can still move the player's view, but clicks don't seem to do anything.
If they did, I was thinking a "open the computer for keyboard, move your view for a mouse" would be possible; tried with an advanced comp doing monitor top paint new.pic and an advanced pocket computer in the offhand, but no reaction from the paint program.

You can then write your own program that would transfer events from pocket to target computer you wish to communicate with

I assume this can be done with wireless modems and something similar (even only in concept) to how Unix style input redirection works, likely through the term rom ...object?, but I'm unsure of the details.
Just getting the pocket computer to pass direct keystrokes to a target computer though would be wonderful, and much nicer than my previous 'solution' of "well, if I jump and right click I can see the monitor behind the darkening of the inventory."
What would I need to read up on to implement this?

...you can either use term.redirect to redirect terminal output to monitor...

Speaking of redirection, this sounds like what I was thinking for a "pocket computer as a keyboard" program. I assume that if I replicate at least a functional subset of some interface, I can swap it in for one of the provided ones?

No there is no way to change network name of peripheral.

Makes sense, I suspected that was the case as a way to prevent hard-coding device names. Is there a way to say, differentiate hoppers connected to the network, other than something manual like enabling their respective wired modems in sequence? If not I'll just use different inventories to do the distinction.
I'm thinking something like "differentiate between hoppers above and beside a wired modem".

if you don't have direct filesystem access to folder where minecraft world is saved

Ah right, CC must save this somewhere in the world files. As I've been doing testing in a singleplayer creative world, I have a world with some of my scripts, and yeah it's all there with an identical folder structure under /path/to/.minecraft/saves/<worldname>/computercraft/computer/<computer ID>/

What limitations are there on editing these files "live" while CC is running? I assume I can't just open the files in whatever text editor and directly change them; I'd either be working on files already open by Minecraft or on outdated files.

The goal though is to work with computers which are on a server, so the suggestion of the VScode remote extension is welcome. I'd seen there were VScode plugins and such in my research, but thought it was just for editing and syntax highlighting on a real PC.

Drag and drop is event.

I did see this; I'll need to read up more on the events system to make use of it. Seems somewhat analogous to interrupts in embedded programming?
A hangup though is I would want to be able to run a program and then inspect the state using a REPL, something like running a program under Python's IDLE.
Looks like to do this I'd either be building my own REPL or somehow making a debug program that launches the REPL of choice in some way that it runs the file I provided, then starts the REPL.
As far as I can tell both the MBS and default Lua REPL start by checking if there are any arguments, and if so they exit, printing some guidance messages.
At less than 150 lines though for the default REPL and 435 for the MBS REPL, modifying one or the other to take a file to load in on launch might be easier than I thought!

Thanks for the recommendations!
Edit: looks like the version of CC:T that's in the pack is CC version 1.108.1, which appears to be somewhat out of date. Not surprised, as many other mods are also out of date in the pack...

[Wojbie]

move your view for a mouse

No offhand mode is keyboard only, Mouse does nothing sorry.

how Unix style input redirection works

You are combining 2 separate concepts. In CC terminal stuff and inputs are completely separate.
All inputs are events. All you need to do is read the events on pocket, transmit them to computer and queue them on the computer so whatever code runs on computer thinks they were inputed onto it.

I'm thinking something like "differentiate between hoppers above and beside a wired modem".

Peripherals are abstract to computer. Any ones that are not directly touching it, you are unable to tell where they are in world, this is usually solved by writing some kind of install script that asks user and then stores what is where.

What limitations are there on editing these files "live" while CC is running?

Only issue you will encounter is that it messes with CC concept of disk space, if you delete/edit files out of context it don't properly track how large they are, so it can make it tell you "no space left" even if you deleted files cause its not aware the disk space is now free. But any files you edit should be instantly visible ingame as edited.