Emulation add-ons are often distributed in a format, such as ZIP, more
suitable for extraction and installation from the host (e.g. Windows) side,
rather than the Amiga side. One problem in this case is how to handle
additions to the user-startup file. If it were not for this file,
applications could in most cases simply be installed by copying files over
the target directories.
In Amiga Forever, the "S:" directory
of the Workbench 3.X environment contains an "ExecuteAll" subdirectory. After
execution of
the user-startup sequence, all files (except for .info files) which are
found in this directory are automatically executed. Additionally, and only
when running on a read-write medium, any such files with names
beginning with "runonce" are automatically deleted after
execution.
It is recommended to make the names of these files as unique as possible
(to avoid the case where different applications overwrite each other's
startup file), but version-neutral (otherwise installation of a new version
would require the deletion of older files). The recommended procedure for
files not distributed with Amiga Forever is to use a lower case
file name prefix consisting of a unique internet domain name
assigned to the publisher of the file, with "." replaced with "-",
and separated with a "-", e.g. "example-com-script.bat". This
ensures that a unique namespace is used and minimizes the risk of
conflicts.
The path of the "ExecuteAll" directory, relative to the
"Amiga Files" directory, is "System/dir/System/S/ExecuteAll". The ExecuteAll functionality is invoked from
"System/dir/System/S/Startup-Sequence".
