[chirp_devel] Py3 live mode - understanding the intent

[Martin Cooper]

This is really directed towards Dan, since I suspect he's the only one with
answers. :-)

In the py3 branch, it seems that the intent for live mode radios is to
change the behaviour so that they act more like clone mode. That is,
instead of changes being sent to the radio as soon as they're made, as with
today's Chirp, nothing is sent to the radio until an Upload is done. I
presume this was done to make the two modes appear more consistent. (It's
confusing to existing users who expect instant changes, though, and will
require clear documentation.)

As part of the implementation, a LiveAdapter class is used, and that is a
subclass of the Generic CSV driver. I'm guessing is that this is intended
to enable the saving and loading of "images" for live mode radios, using
CSV files as the file backing. After downloading from a live mode radio,
saving does work, and produces a CSV file, but with a file extension of
"img" rather than "csv". Due to that file extension, however, loading does
_not_ work, because the image type detection code does not look for
CSV-typed data.

Also, immediately after a Download, the tab in the GUI shows a ".img"
filename, and shows it as edited. It's unclear as to whether this is
intended (because no file has been saved) or not (because no changes have
actually been made to the memories that were just downloaded).

Finally (for now), when running an Upload, all memories are written to the
radio, regardless of whether or not they have been changed. This can be
slow, since all memories in all banks are written. If I Download from the
radio, change one memory, and then Upload to the radio, because of the way
live mode radios work, it seems like it would make more sense to upload
only the memory that has changed. This may get more complicated when
dealing with "images" loaded from a file, though - or maybe not, since
memories are also being read as they are being written.

Before I dive in and look at making changes, it would be helpful to
understand the thinking behind the approach, and the intent of how it
should work, particularly in regard to the points mentioned above, but also
in any other related regard. I do have a local change for writing only
changed memories, but I'd like to have the big picture before going any
further.

Thanks,

Martin.
KD6YAM
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