[Xastir] Send Message Dialog improved

[Curt, WE7U]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006, William McKeehan wrote:

> I'm not a big fan of the dialog changes.

A pity.  The changes represent quite a few hours of work.  Any time
I mess with dialogs/widgets it takes a while to get the result I
want.


> I liked being able to quickly change the path on the fly. I don't like opening
> another dialog to make the changes.

The changes allowed me to close three bugs on our bug-list, which is
why I went about it in the first place.  The original code would not
allow us to do these things:

    *) Change the path while messages were in the transmit queue
       without the risk of half-edited paths getting used.
    *) Change to a direct path.
    *) Change back to default paths for msgs in the TX queue.


We can now do all of them.


> I run an APRS net (a voice net about APRS
> which is supplemented by APRS for check-ins, question submissions, etc.) and
> can easily have 20+ message dialogs open. Being able to quickly adjust a path
> is very important to reduced the QRM produced by a genated by a
> one-size-for-all messaging path.

You can now do up to 30 message dialogs by default.

I don't see the new dialogs as much slower than the old method for
changing to a custom path, plus we have more options now.


> What I would like to see around messaging is a way to see all
> outstanding messages (i.e., messages that are still retransmitting
> after I have closed a send message box).

> I would like to have a setting to let me use the reverse path,
> default path or a specific path by default.

> And while I'm mentioning it, a "View - Message Traffic" like
> dialog that shows messages just sent to/by me would be nice

> And finally, I would like some indication of where my message will
> "wrap" to multiple messages

> and have the ability to have my message "wrap" to shorter lengths
> for when I'm chatting with someone who is using a D7 or D700
> (ideally, automatically figured out by Xastir and optionally
> set/unset by the user).

All fine ideas.  These need to be added to the RFE list so they're
not forgotten.

I think #3 could be done with a togglebutton on the View Messages
dialog.  I've also thought it might be nice to have a "Remove Dupes"
togglebutton there too, and a INET/TNC/INET&TNC selection, like the
Incoming Data dialog.

#4 could be done by carefully sizing the input window.

#5 could be another toggle on the Send Message dialog.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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