v1.602: DX label system improvements, much more

jksjks
edited June 2023 in Software release information

v1.602 is available.

There's one problem already: When the EiBi labels are refreshed in any way (switching to them, zoom change, etc.) there is an audio click. I think it's a problem on the Javascript side. Only happens when there are lots of labels visible (e.g. zoomed out).

From the CHANGE_LOG file (as an attachment because the forum software can't handle the message length, lol)



Comments

  • jksjks

    An example of the new "signal bandwidth" user interface effect can be seen by clicking on the SuperDARN radar label at 10.18 MHz (stored and community label databases).

  • G8JNJG8JNJ
    edited June 2023

    Hi John,

    Thanks for all your hard work it is much appreciated.

    I like the new features, especially the signal bandwidth marker.

    I have a few suggestions.

    Maybe the signal bandwidth marker could use the same colour as the DX label that it is associated with. This would help with identification when there are a lot of different labels in close proximity. An outline and marker arrow may also need to be added to help when the label colour is a pastel shade or semi transparent.

    Maybe something like this.

    image.png

    Also I think it would help if the signal bandwidth marker appeared when the DX label was clicked on, but it cleared as soon as either another label was selected, or a frequency was chosen that was outside the marked signal bandwidth zone.

    Ideally the signal bandwidth marker would remain if the waterfall was zoomed in or out, a frequency was selected within the signal bandwidth marker zone or the waterfall frequency scale was shifted without a clicked retune.

    Hopefully this would still work OK if you decide to implement some of the other DX label enhancements.

    Regards,

    Martin

  • G8JNJG8JNJ

    Hi John,

    Sorry, but I'm not keen on the explanatory notes that have been added to the DX label.

    I think they detract from the purpose, Admins will already know about how to perform an edit, and personally I find the shift-option-click description to be confusing.

    If you do still wish to add the help notes, maybe the main text could be in bold or a larger font to help differentiate between them.


    image.png

    I'm also still struggling with the reversed peak hold and spectrum display sequences, but that's just me being used to the originals :-)

    Regards,

    Martin

  • G8JNJG8JNJ

    I still can't get the

     Spectrum shortcut:

           Typing alt/ctrl-s will toggle the spectrum selection in reverse:

           That is off->RF->AF->off becomes off->AF->RF->off (shift-s already used for auto-scale)

    to work for me, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the alt/ctrl-s description ?

    How about using Shift spectrum instead, like the method used with the peak hold buttons ?

    Or maybe press and hold for 1 second ?

  • jksjks

    @G8JNJ

    1) Signal b/w: Yes, I can do the color-matching with label. Especially important with your label database that has so many different label colors. As you've noticed the annotation just disappears whenever the labels are redrawn. I ran out of time/effort to do anything more intelligent. So I can work on that.

    2) Key modifiers displayed in the label mouseover popup: I did that because of the key change with EiBi labels. But it does make the popup cluttered.

    Using alt/ctrl is an attempt to describe the variable situation with Windows/Linux/Mac. The full story is shown at the bottom of the keyboard shortcut help panel ("h" key). With Windows, which is what I assume we're talking about, you always use alt because ctrl-anything tends to bring up browser-specific menus. I should re-check this though. It's a pain for me because the only Windows machine I have is an ancient laptop which always takes two hours to boot and run Windows update (that's not an exaggeration unfortunately).

    3) Reverse spectrum toggle: It should be alt-s on Windows. Maybe this doesn't work -- I'll check. As the change log mentioned shift-s ("S") is already taken by the waterfall auto-scale function. See the shortcut help panel.

  • scratchmoneyscratchmoney

    I noticed that for USB signals, using the signal BW makes it appear +- center frequency, rather than only + of center:

    USB-sig-bw.png

    Here are the settings for the preset. I tried adding + to the signal bw box to no avail:


    image.png


  • jksjks

    It looks that way doesn't it? But if you had picked 4 kHz instead (or 2) you'd notice that it is indeed centered about the carrier (8788 in your case).

    Now you could make an argument that it should be centered about the passband center I suppose. But it is really intended to be used for wide signals where you couldn't differentiate if it was centered on carrier or PBC or not.

  • scratchmoneyscratchmoney

    Right, that's what I meant, ala the same as the pass band reticle. So this is just for symmetrical signals then I guess.

  • jksjks

    As mentioned in the change log file it's Martin's visual way of associating a label with a wide-band signal i.e. OTHR, CODAR, HFT etc. Signals with bandwidth greater than, say, 10 kHz.

    Signals less than that are presumably bracketed by the passband settings (mode, possibly custom pb hi/lo values).

  • G8JNJG8JNJ
    edited June 2023

    Yes, normally the indicated signal would be much wider than the receive bandwidth, so the green receive passband marker would fall within the much wider signal bandwidth marker.

    With wideband signals such as radar and HF Trading the demodulation mode would probably be AM, FM or I/Q and as such it would be symmetrical about the centre frequency.

    Maybe to avoid confusion, make it so that the signal bandwidth marker cannot be narrower than the receiver bandwidth marker ?

    Another thought would be to make the bandwidth marker similar to the receive bandwidth and have a comma separated upper and lower limit such as -50,50, although personally I can't think of a situation where this may be required.

    Regards,

    Martin

  • fabrysfabrys

    After the update I have encountered a problem when I have to create a label.

    Specifically, once the fields of interest have been filled in, and with the [ADD] key highlighted in red, nothing happens after clicking with the mouse, the form remains open and the label is not created.

    The only solution I've found is to modify an existing label and then use the [ADD] key to insert it into the new frequency.

    Once this operation has been carried out, from that moment on the creation of the labels returns to normal, until it stops again after an undefined period having to modify another label, to create a new one.

  • G8JNJG8JNJ

    Yes it's the same with me.

    If I shift click on the GUI to create a new label, the frequency defaults to 30000 rather than the frequency the cursor was set to.

    If I change this to the actual frequency an orange boarder appears around the green add button and the button will not activate.

    Regards,

    Martin

  • fabrysfabrys

    I tested 3 different browsers:

    Mozilla - Edge and Chrome.

    The problem is always the same, failure to memorize the label, with the exception of the fact that the frequency that appears in the creation of the label is actually the one where the Kiwi is currently tuned.

  • G8JNJG8JNJ

    You are correct.

    I just tried it again, and it is creating the label on the correct frequency, but it will not store.

    I'm not sure why it defulted to 30000 when I previously tried it.

  • jksjks

    Not sure how that escaped my testing. Already fixed for the next release..

  • fabrysfabrys
    Immagine 2023-06-09 094143.jpg 
    .. on the occasion of the next changes, 
I would ask you to evaluate the possibility of modifying this information box, 
making it floating to the left so that it can be hidden and recalled if necessary 
like the one on the right, or reduce its size or create it vertically and not horizontally 
in order to limit the space occupied on the cascade

The personal request is taken into consideration only if it is simple to implement.


  • jksjks
    edited June 2023

    @fabrys Fixed in v1.603.

    Also fixed in v1.603 is the 'x' key which hides/restores all the control panels. Similar to how the 'y' key toggles the display of the top bar and label area / band bar.

  • fabrysfabrys

    Great, thanks for updating the control panel!

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