[Xastir-Dev] Messaging interface...]

[Mark - N2PGD]

Folks,

So now that the latest stable release is out, I'd like to start a
dicussion/design thread on how we can make xastir's message interface
better.  The only other APRS programs I've played with have been APRS-CE
and WinAPRS.  Here are some suggestions I have, from my experience with
those interfaces and personal wishlish items:

- Get ride of the message popups.  These always seem to come up at the
most unfortunate times.

- Have all messages listed in one window.  Among things listed, include:
  * current status (could be color coded or field with different
    qualifiers).  Status could include:
      - oustanding ack: still in the process of sending
      - acked
      - delayed: message retries have exceeded some retry limit after
        which the message is marked delayed.  Xastir will try sending
        the message again, if it sees packets from that station
      - canceled
      - reply: this message has been acked and is a reply to a
        message you received
  * list station you are sending the message two
  * obviously, the message content
  * list the number of retries/delayed/timeout

- Flexible filtering options:
  * I like the distance filtering and would certainly keep it.  This is
    something WinAPRS didn't have!
  * I'd like to be able to filter out messages to/from all of my
    stations.  We could just filter on the base callsign, i.e. N2PGD and
    I would see messages to/from N2PGD, N2PGD-9, and N2PGD-15
  * I'd like to be able to filter out messages to/from only this
    particular station.  This would mean filterin on the station
    callsign, i.e. N2PGD-9
  * custom filtering where we allow the user to put in regexp for
    filtering

- Message logging:  I'd be interested in having the ability to log three
different kinds of messages:
  * all messages
  * messages to/from all my stations
  * messages to/from only this particular station

- Viewing messages via thread:  I haven't come up with a completely
success method for determining a message thread, perhaps a combination
of time and station calls?  Even if it only grouped them by to/from
callsign groups, that would be handy.

- Message printing:  This probably sounds like a crazy idea to some, but
could be really handy in the case of ECOM.  It would be good to have
them formatted in some nice way, with origination info, time, date, etc.
 I'd like to see a few different priting modes:
  * The ability to highlight a single message and print it
  * The ability to highlight a message thread and print it
  * Every message gets sent to the printer

- NTS messaging.  WinAPRS presents the user with an NTS message window.
 It then takes this window, breaks it into various APRS messages and
sends them off.  If WinAPRS receives such a group of messages, it
recombines it into an NTS message format and presents it as an NTS
message to the user.  Again, this would be really handy in an ECOM
situation.

So what do people think, any of these good ideas?  I'm sure there are
some more/better ideas out there.

Mark