[chirp_devel] I'd like to add some features to the developer tools

[chirp.cordless at xoxy.net]

Tom, thanks for responding.

On Jun 4, 2014, at 12:42 PM, Tom Hayward - esarfl at gmail.com 
> I'm not sure I understand everything you're suggesting. If you have
> already implemented this, can send the changes in patch format so I
> can try them myself?

Yes, implemented and working for several months now.
I will do that today. Privately, just to keep the noise level down.

> Most of the time, I like having full context in the memory diff. It's
> not like it's very long.
> I don't understand why a negative channel number was chosen to enable
> this feature. Wouldn't a checkbox be more appropriate?

Well, channel -1 to enable the diff was what was built into Chirp to enable
the diff when I showed up here. It's not advertised, I discovered it from
browsing the code. See mainapp.py line 212.
Using -2 for the "diffs-only" version seemed like a reasonable
extension.

In fact, one of the changes I've made is to advertise the function.
>> Added some help text to the "Diff Radios" dialog explaining the
>> hex dumps available with mem # = -1 and -2.


I agree about wanting the context a lot of the time, and I'm not
proposing to eliminate that, at all. But twiddling some radio buttons
and dumping state, and wanting to be sure I notice ALL the changes,
get's pretty hairy when the scroll is ~3600 lines as in the FT-60.
I disagree that it's not very long, and I found myself wanting a
tool that allows me to be sure I got them all. So I built it.

That's also the focus of the diff_charflag mode. I just want to
be sure I see ALL the differences.

> Can you read the font size from the operating system default? I think
> this is the appropriate way to do it, but I don't know specifics.
> Ability to override this is reasonable, but maybe the problem is that
> you have your OS configured the way you like and Chirp isn't honoring
> it. That sounds more critical than implementing a font size override.

My eyesight is what you might expect for late 60s. I probably have
most apps configured to a slightly larger font than the majority, but in
actual practice, I switch them larger or smaller within apps (e.g. browser,
mail, pdf viewer, ...) pretty dynamically so I can see detail when needed,
and more context when not.

Just importing a "system font size" is not what I want.
I've worked out what I want the Chirp diffs and browser to be so
I can work with them, and I'd like to be able to set that directly,
not futz with inheriting some system property that I'd have to set
globally to get Chirp how I want it, that might make other apps
not behave as I'd like.

Not to mention introducing system dependencies. All I have is a Mac.
If you or someone wants to import a system font size as the default,
fine with me. I note that in the existing code, the browser and diff
sizes are different, so someone thought they needed to be.
Just allow me to override the default, however it's set.

> These sound like a number of small, atomic features. Each distinct
> feature should be its own patch and we can discuss it independently if
> needed. If one feature is dependent on another, just make sure the
> order of your patches is appropriate.

Groan. Yeah, I know the rules. Look over the changes and see if
they're trivial enough to do some lumping. But whatever it takes.

Patch equivalent coming soon.

-dan