Hello everyone, it's been a while since I've been here and I have new projects to share with all of you. Lately, I've been working on a shell called xFiles CE. This shell is an improvement (and port, ish) from the monochrome predecessors of xFiles and xFiles 2 for the TI-83/84/+/SE series calculators. An image below is an example of the polished Dialog box which will be used in the program.



I plan to pack this program full of features, including ones that haven't been included in xFiles. A small list of some features I'll include in the program:

- Safety Mode: When enabled, this mode will prevent xFiles CE from running assembly programs, copying, editing, deleting any programs. It will also prevent xFiles from running when the battery level is less than 3 (that last part is a pending idea).
- PIN protection: A security measure that will prevent unauthorized access. xFiles CE will be protected by an encrypted 4-digit PIN and will lock out the program for a certain amount of time if a certain amount of attempts has been reached.
- File Rename: The ability to rename any program or app variable.
- Revision check: Checks if your calculator is Revision M+ or not.
- Battery Charge indicator
- UI theming
- Custom backgrounds

xFiles CE will have an improved and clean user interface, with more space to place information and text in. It will also include a custom font (separate program) to make everything look a little snazzier.

This program will be a shell written in TI-BASIC with the aid of assembly programs to enhance your experience. More features will be added along the way as this is in heavy development. I am looking to release a beta of this program by mid-late December, so look out for it! This will be my first working shell for the CE. Once Celtic CE beta 2 is out, I will speed up development progress.

There will be some things in xFiles CE that will be a bit of a "downgrade" compared to it's monochrome versions, but I won't be able to fix these due to the limitations of Celtic CSE compatibility. I Won't be able to copy files multiple lines at a time due to the limitations of Celtic. Only one line can be copied at a time. Some functions will look messy because of how Celtic CE operates.

Estimated Requirements:

- TI-84 Plus CE/T/Python Edition Series Calculators
- OS <= 5.4.0

Memory Requirements:
- 10K of RAM
- 20K of flash storage

Let me know what you think of this! This will be a fancy BASIC shell, so it obviously won't be as good as existing ones. If there are any features or ideas you have for this program, let me know! Ideas, suggestions, comments, constructive criticism is appreciated!

On a side note, I do not identify as BioHazard anymore. I am the same person you all know and hate, so I would appreciate it if you refer to me as AchakTheFurry, or simply Achak. Thank you!

This looks like a really interesting program idea! I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves over time. Also, it's nice to see you back!

Do you have any more screenshots of the progress so far?

The features sound interesting. How are you planning on implementing custom backgrounds? Will these be colors or images?

What do you mean by "Encrypted" PIN? How are you planning to encrypt it? It's kind of difficult to make something actually secure on a calculator

What features are going to be lacking? The only thing you listed was copying lines one at a time which doesn't seem to be to that big of an issue? There's also going to be a program to string command at some point which should help with that Also, what do you mean by functions looking messy? If the actual shell looks messy, that's bad design. If the code looks messy, that's either bad code design or something necessary which means it isn't really that big of a deal.

As I said before, I'm looking forward to how this turns out

As of right now, I have paused development of xFiles CE and will resume development when Beta 2 of Celtic CE is released. So I don't have any more screenshots right now.

Custom backgrounds will be a single image for now, but maybe in a future release I could do a custom repeating sprite background like I did with xFiles 2 and BasicOS. (if Celtic will have a command for that)

I have a very simple encryption algorithm, it isn't the most secure thing in the world, but might be secure enough to keep the noobs out. ;3

There are commands Celtic III can accomplish but Celtic CE won't be able to. I don't know what features yet, but I know there will be some I won't be able to do.

Messy as in, Celtic III had it's commands done differently compared to Celtic CE.
For example, Celtic III could store anything to Ans, strings, real numbers, etc. For Celtic CE, it uses additional variables as output (Theta, Str9, Str0, etc.)
III could also write a line of code to another file with
Code:
, however with CE I have to constantly put things in strings and other variables, so the code would appear messy

Small update on progress, here’s an idea of what the UI will look like. I plan to add a top bar like Ubuntu GNOME’s desktop environment.

https://i.ibb.co/Y2tn4sM/63-EED4-CC-3-F7-D-4-B3-C-BF19-EBF5-F20-F2-C8-E.jpg

I've made a decent amount of progress since my previous update. So far of what I have completed:

- Boot Sequence (forgot a few things, won't impact anything)
- Preparation
- Main Menu
- Sleep (Only works on physical hardware, thanks RoccoLox for the APD powerdown code!)
- GUI
- Top bar with the time and battery display
- Encrypted Passcode login (kicks you out at 10 wrong attempts)

A small sample of how it will look like:

https://i.ibb.co/SmJrFbG/Demo.gif


Not slow anymore LogicalJoe

Looking great!

The UI all fits together very nicely, and I like the loading screen. Is the speed increase because you have less files on the calculator, or because you improved your algorithm? I like the features the shell has, and it's certainly one of the most promising basic shells I've seen so far. Keep up the good work

The speed is faster because there are less files. It takes longer on my calculator because I have over 100 programs and over 100 app variables. I plan to add some other miscellaneous tools:

- Nulline Removal
- DCS Sprite Editor
- The famous Program Spammer
- Temporarily change background with random colored rectangles
- Bulk Hide, Lock, Archive, Delete, Convert to Appv/Prgm

Those are some of the things I’m planning on adding. If you have suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Small update, finished settings and made it so users can input a passcode up to 13 digits.

Lately I've been working on xFiles CE more, getting more progress in. Most of the features in this are complete, I just have to finish up a few things, and then it will be ready!







I changed some things to make it look better, what do you think so far?

After weeks of work and waiting, xFiles CE 0.95 is now ready for you to try out (when it gets approved on ticalc.org and the archives here of course!)

If you would like to try it out early, shoot me a DM here or on Discord: Synthachak#3621

Hey guys! Small issue here, my calculator crashes whenever it displays the program on Cesium. Any idea why? (Yes i have Celtic installed)

Have you tried updating cesium? This might be due to an icon being incorrectly formatted

Yeah, it seems xFiles uses a more obscure icon format that wasn't supported in older versions of Cesium.

Yeah, i didn't know theres a newer version of Cesium, updating now!

Crashed again... What can i do?

Same, Cesium crashes when I try to open it with this shell installed on my calc.

From what I learned Cesium crashes for some reason when Celtic is installed, I have no idea why. I just run it from the home screen.

I actually had forgotten to even send Celtic to my calculator when the crash happened. I just had xFiles, two TI-Boy CE ROMs and Cesium installed and trying to start Cesium would result in a crash even after a fresh RAM reset.

I don't think this is a Celtic issue, as mentioned from the posts above. Cesium works just fine with Celtic installed for other programs, even ones that use it like my self-modifying clock icon program.

Maybe in the next update I might change the icon so it stops crashing for people.

More bugs to fix 🕷️

The icon works fine for me with the latest Cesium.

My guess is a Celtic issue.