[chirp_users] Beginner;s Guide and missing links

[Mike Agner]

Just looking at the documentation that's already on the website, it 
appears that there's no mention of the miklor website anywhere. Yet 
there are several places there that have information on Windows installs 
and other data that the wiki should have but doesn't. Clearly some links 
to this website are going to be needed. I wouldn't have even known about 
this site until I was told about it - and neither would any newcomer 
trying to read the Chirp wiki. That's a pretty serious omission.

Along those same lines, it also seems apparent that given the miklor 
site has a few Windows tips that the wiki doesn't, it does make one 
wonder what other Windows tips are not documented on the wiki.  I think 
there should be a 'Running under Windows' page much like there is for 
MacOS and Linux. All of those tips - including the Windows stuff that's 
found in the OEM cable discussion - should probably be in one place. The 
OEM cable discussion could then just link to the Windows, Mac and Linux 
page as needed.

Related to the cables, it's mentioned in the wiki that some OEM cables 
work with other radios (for example, the FT7800 cable works with other 
radios - be specific - which ones?). Again this is something the 
newcomer would not know, and needs to be clearly spelled out.  In 
addition, all the data that's specific to a given radio can be moved to 
that radio's article.

Next is the question  as to which radios are 'clone-mode' radios and 
which aren't. That topic is mentioned in the FAQ, there doesn't seem to 
be anywhere that defines which model is or isn't. That's something that 
the article for each radio would need to have. Unless I missed it, I 
didn't see it in the features list page either. Even if it is there, it 
sure seems difficult to find. It looks like that the basic functionality 
of CHIRP varies somewhat between non-clone and clone mode radios (is 
this right?). One way to address this is to create a pool of common 
pages that defines all of CHIRP's functions. They would be broken down 
into 4 categories;

- Functions that are common between all radios
- Functions that are common to the clone mode radios
- Functions that are common to the non-clone mode radios

No I didn't miscount. There is a fourth function - importing and 
exporting data. There's already something on the wiki for CSV stuff, and 
there's even a YouTube video on this. And that's part of it, but not 
all. There's also the matter of importing data from external sites, such 
as Repeaterbook or RadioReference.  Each of these would need to be 
defined, one function at a time.

Once all that is done, then each model of radio can point to the page(s) 
that apply to it, and ignore those that don't.  When a new radio comes 
along,  it's then just a matter of building the correct links

There's lots of work to be done here - writing good documentation often 
is.  No one person should even think to do all of this. But if we can 
get people just to define one function, eventually it would
all get done.

Mike


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