More than 9 boot devices

[Аладышев Константин]

Is it possible in SeaBIOS to have working boot menu with amount of boot
devices more than 9?
I mean in this case we have boot device numbers with two digits, which is
impossible to select. If I want to select string 12 and try to enter "12",
SeaBIOS recognizes "1" and boot from device "1"...

[Kevin O'Connor]

On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 04:33:10PM +0300, Аладышев Константин wrote:
> Is it possible in SeaBIOS to have working boot menu with amount of boot
> devices more than 9?
> I mean in this case we have boot device numbers with two digits, which is
> impossible to select. If I want to select string 12 and try to enter "12",
> SeaBIOS recognizes "1" and boot from device "1"...

The internal code can handle more than 9 devices, but unfortunately
the menu code would need to be updated to display meaningful keys and
to check for them on entry.

-Kevin

[Аладышев Константин]

Will there be such a patch in the near future? Or this isn't in a plan right now?

Anyway, what is the right way to deal with this situation? Display letters or symbols after "9"?  Or deal with two digit numbers?

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin O'Connor [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 3:48 AM
To: Аладышев Константин
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: More than 9 boot devices

On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 04:33:10PM +0300, Аладышев Константин wrote:
> Is it possible in SeaBIOS to have working boot menu with amount of 
> boot devices more than 9?
> I mean in this case we have boot device numbers with two digits, which 
> is impossible to select. If I want to select string 12 and try to 
> enter "12", SeaBIOS recognizes "1" and boot from device "1"...

The internal code can handle more than 9 devices, but unfortunately the menu code would need to be updated to display meaningful keys and to check for them on entry.

-Kevin

[Dennis Guse]

I like your letters idea!

---
Dennis Guse

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 10:08 AM, Аладышев Константин 
wrote:
> Will there be such a patch in the near future? Or this isn't in a plan
> right now?
>
> Anyway, what is the right way to deal with this situation? Display letters
> or symbols after "9"?  Or deal with two digit numbers?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin O'Connor [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 3:48 AM
> To: Аладышев Константин
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: More than 9 boot devices
>
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 04:33:10PM +0300, Аладышев Константин wrote:
> > Is it possible in SeaBIOS to have working boot menu with amount of
> > boot devices more than 9?
> > I mean in this case we have boot device numbers with two digits, which
> > is impossible to select. If I want to select string 12 and try to
> > enter "12", SeaBIOS recognizes "1" and boot from device "1"...
>
> The internal code can handle more than 9 devices, but unfortunately the
> menu code would need to be updated to display meaningful keys and to check
> for them on entry.
>
> -Kevin
>
> SeaBIOS mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/seabios

[Kevin O'Connor]

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 12:08:04PM +0300, Аладышев Константин wrote:
> Will there be such a patch in the near future? Or this isn't in a plan right now?
>
> Anyway, what is the right way to deal with this situation? Display letters or symbols after "9"?  Or deal with two digit numbers?

Someone would need to submit a patch to make it work.  In the mean
time, 0 should work for 10, - for 11, = for 12, tab for 13 - see the
scan_to_keycode table in kbd.c for the rest.

-Kevin

[Gerd Hoffmann]

On Do, 2016-12-29 at 12:08 +0300, Аладышев Константин wrote:
> Will there be such a patch in the near future? Or this isn't in a plan
> right now?
>
> Anyway, what is the right way to deal with this situation? Display
> letters or symbols after "9"?  Or deal with two digit numbers?

Depends a bit on what you are targeting ...

Using letters is neat, we can continue to work with single key strokes
and can handle up to 36 entries.  Well, in practice more like 24 entries
because vga text mode has 25 lines only.  Supporting more than 24
entries in a reasonable manner is more complex as we will need support
for scrolling the boot menu then.

cheers,
  Gerd