[aprssig] conveying map view

[Curt, WE7U]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, Bill Herrmann wrote:

> First a brief visit to the soapbox. The protocol and the UI (to be clear
> UI=User Interface throughout this message not the other UI meaning) are NOT
> one and the same! An object with a specific symbol and a specific attribute
> (i.e. the eyeball and RNG) is a good way to transport the information. What
> the users view does from there is not part of how to transport the
> information! It can be a recommendation or even a part of a specification
> but shouldn't be embedded in the "how to transport it" part. (end of
> soapbox section)

However...  The uses we are to put of this data may affect greatly
how the data is formatted in the protocol.  We need to decide what
we want before we can decide how to implement it.


> If I were going to make some recommendations on what the UI should do they
> would be:
> 1. Keep a list of views based on views received. (So that the user can
> select the one they want.)
> 2. Optionally switch to a new view (possibly based on criteria such as "I
> accept views from call xy#abc") but be sure to keep a record of the current
> view before switching. In other words give the user the ability to switch
> back if they still want their old view! Ideally give the user the ability
> to say that they want to always, never, or "prompt me" want to switch to
> new views when they are received.
> 3. Put any new views whose centers are in the current view on the map as
> the "view" (eyeball) object. Provide users some feedback that a new view
> has been added to the list (from item 1)
> 4. Give the user the ability to whitelist and blacklist view senders.

Wow.  That's a lot of new features.  I'm not willing to code up that
much at this time, but a subset now, and more features added over
time would certainly be possible.

I'm thinking of just doing the parsing of the eyeball+range objects
for now, so that they present a new mouse menu option if you click
on them.  That option would allow changing the map view to
correspond.  There's already a go-back-one map view option in the
menus so you can recover (once anyway!) if it's an incorrect view.

So far I'm very much sold on the Eyeball+range idea.  Are we good to
go for implementation on that part of it?

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