DX database suggestion/feature request
Hi all,
I'm in the process of setting up a new Kiwi for my club (VK2MB in VK2), and I've been adding DX labels of local interest, such as club net frequencies, Australian and regional shortwave broadcasters, non-directional beacons in my state, and so on.
I have found the "notes" field of the DX database useful for showing things like net times, beacon location, broadcaster web site URL, etc in the hover text for the label. Example, the hover text on: http://21105.proxy.kiwisdr.com:8073/?f=7260.00amz6. (I'm currently configuring and tested the SDR off-site.The URL may change in a week or two when it moves to its final home.)
Obviously, the last part - a web site URL in the hover text - can't be clicked to take you to that external web site, so at the moment it's only for my own reference.
But to my suggestion: if a "url" or "link" key with a URL value could be added to the parameters field of a dx.json entry, then it *might* be feasible/useful to open that URL in a new browser tab upon, say, a Ctrl-click on the DX label.
Easy for me to suggest work for other people to do, of course, so feel free to reject the idea. :-)
Thank you for your consideration.
73 Richard VK2SKY
Comments
Believe it or not, we actually have this already. Like so many things it's not very well documented. Try the 4095 kHz community database label mentioned below. From the CHANGE_LOG file (at the top of the source code tree in the Beagle or on Github):
v1.629,630 October 15, 2023
Allow clickable links in the DX label ident field. Example:
BEACON C&P #5 FSK <a href="https://www.hfunderground.com/wiki/Common_and_Precious_5"
target="_blank">hfunderground.com</a>
Results in the DX label: "BEACON C&P #5 FSK hfunderground.com" where the "hfunderground.com"
portion is an underlined clickable link. 'target="_blank"' makes the link open in a new tab.
The DX community database has two of these links at 4095 kHz for the Berlin C&P #5 beacon.
The hfunderground.com link goes to the beacon's wiki page. One label starts the CW decoder and
the other label starts the FSK decoder, for the two modes sent by this beacon.
Ah, brilliant, thanks! I'll update my labels in the morning.
73 Richard VK2SKY
For anyone interested in trying this, I've updated the Radio Vanuatu example with some minor enhancements:
[3945.00, "AM", "R. Vanuatu <a href='https://ndmo.gov.vu/fr/community/cyclone-awareness/152-radio-broadcast-frequencies' target='_blank' style='text-decoration: none'> 🔗</a>", "Radio Vanuatu\n(tnx Stu VK2BMX)", {"T3":1}],
http://21105.proxy.kiwisdr.com:8073/?f=3945.00amz6
Hey, that's neat. I didn't know about
text-decoration: noneYes, the underline on the link icon was annoying me, so I thought I'd CSS it away. :-)
Just a heads-up for anyone who wishes to add the hyperlinks to the DX labels, as I have done at http://websdr.mwrs.org.au:8073/: this breaks the behaviour of dynamic labels.
For example, the International Beacon Project at 14100kHz, normally changes to show the active beacon location. (http://www.kiwisdr.com/quickstart/#id-user-ibp); the label no longer changes if the label has been altered from "IBP".
The "IBP" labels were a one-off hack done back in 2016. When the EiBi database was added a few years ago we gained time-sensitive label visibility (start/stop time, both time-of-day and days-of-week). And this was ported to the other databases.
But a more general IBP-like capability, where the content of a label could be synchronized to time and perhaps other factors, remains on the "todo" list. Along with 10,000 other things.