[Xlog-discussion] A few xlog patches

[Werner Koch]

Hello!

Now that my transceiver sits close to my monitor I started to make real
use of xlog.  It is a nice and small Unix program and should be
sufficient for me.  However, there are a couple of peculiarities: For
example on Saturday I did some contest QSOs and got one dup response
("we already had a QSO").  The worked before windows showed that QSO but
I didn't realized that fast enough.  So a better indication is needed to
make such things obvious.  I did some patches:

1. Change the color of a new callsign when it has been worked.

    The color is changed on an exact match.  It would be better to also
    indicate a fuzzy match here.  The whole thing is pretty important to
    quickly check whether a station has already been worked; for example
    in a contest.
    
    Using a fixed color is a bit crude but it is a first step for an
    improved answer-back during data entry.

2. Just one button to set date and UTC to the current time.
    
    It does not make sense to be able to set the current time but keep
    the existing date.  Better one button for this.  Note that the date
    can anyway be edited manually to any value.

3. Change the order of fields in the QSO frame
    
    Except when typing in old log paper entries or similar, there is no
    reason that the order must follow the order in the log windows.
    From a usage point of view the new order seems to be better.  For
    example the band and mode is rarely changed and should thus not get
    into the way when logging a new QSO.  The call and the RSTs should
    be the first and easiest to enter data.  Actually the UTC should
    even come after the call but I didn't do that because another patch
    should fill in the UTC at save-time - this is a better for contests.

as well as a few supporting changes.  My goal is to make xlog ready for
real contest use up to a level that it can compete with whatever the
other hams in my club are using on Windows.  I also looked at fldigi,
which is a great set of tools, but given that I am more a C and Gtk+ guy
I decided to give xlog a try.

Given that I basically lost all my CVS knowledge, I took the Savannah
xlog2 repo and imported it into a new Git repository for my local work.
You can find it at

  git://git.gnupg.org/people/wk/xlog.git

Now the question is whether you like my changes at all and, if so, how
shall I send you the patches?

I would also like to discuss possible new features here to see whether
my patches make sense for a wider community.  The next feature I am
looking into is an automatic RST+nnn counter and faster and more safe
contest logging options.



Salam-Shalom,

   Werner


-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.

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