Task Management with EZ

The EZ toolkit provides a number of tools essentially aiding in the automation and simplification of tasks, and task management.

With a focus on ease of use, and end user simplicity, by nature, EZ is designed to stick as close as possible to the ‘Unix philosophy’ with each tool having a singular and task specific focal point. Tools are designed for all linux systems, however usage may be limited outside the boundaries of an Arch based distrobution / Arch Linux system.

The toolkit consists of the following packages:

  • ez: A Frontend for certain tools in the toolkit
  • ezdl: EZ Download Helper
  • ezgc: EZ Git Cloning Tool
  • eztst: EZ quick-access testing dirctory
  • ezssl: EZ SSL Certificate Generator

Usage

ez is a minimalistic frontend for the toolkit, designed to be used for less hands on tasks, or for quick access to other tools in the toolkit, subject to the tools being used without any use flags or options outside the scope provided by a more ‘graphical’ user interface.

ezdl is designed to act as an intermediary between the user and various package management systems. Simply, it allows for the subsequent downloading of packages from a multitude of different sources, namely: pacman, the AUR, npm, snap packages and git repositories. Package sources are defined by their respective sources initials, following csv format and proceeding each list entry. If no package source is specified, the package will be assumed to be within the Arch Linux repos or the AUR.

ezgc is a wrapper for the git clone command, designed to simplify the process of cloning repositories based on their respective sources. It also gives users the ability to set a default url for cloning from the source of their personal repos, or any URL of their choice.

eztst provides the user with quick and easy access to the EZtesting directory, which acts as a subsidiary to the users home directory, or local binary directory (if the user has one). This directory is designed to house all user-created binaries and scripts still in testing, and not yet ready for use in a production environment, and is intended to be used as a staging area for testing and development. However, intentions aside, depending on the users motive, this directory can be used for any files or directories where quick access is needed. eztst can also be used to quick-create bash or python scripts with the appropriate shebang line, or to copy files in or out of the EZtesting directory, and immediately begin editing them.

ezssl is a wrapper for openssl, with uses limited to the generation a root certification authority and consiquent self-signed x509 SSL certificates, based on the users specifications.

EZ-dl Documentation

Prerequisites:

  • npn: To download npm packages with ezdl
  • snapd: To install snap packages with ezdl
  • python-pip: To install python packages with ezdl
  • git: To use ezgc for cloning git repositories
  • lf: To use eztst’s lf file-management functionality
  • paru: To use ezdl’ for downloading packages from the AUR