[drats_users] D-RATS 0.2.6b6

[Dan Smith]

Hi all,

I just posted a new beta with some changes that might be helpful for
testing with gateways and reflectors.  The semantics of the changes are
a little hard to describe, so I'll try to do it here and will be glad to
answer questions and clarify as needed.  For those of you who have
joined recently, the latest beta build can always be found here:

  http://d-rats.danplanet.com/download/beta/

Changes since the previous beta:
- Added ability to set the color of "broken" text (i.e. the yellow
  stuff)
- Fixed up a few issues that should make startup a little quicker
- Add options in settings dialog for block size and pipeline size[1]
- Add COM port detection on Windows[2]
- Make sure to limit users to 8-character callsigns
- Add option for changing the map storage location
- Add warmup[3] and forced delay[4] settings

Notes:
[1] When pipelined transfers are turned on, D-RATS sends multiple
packets per "round".  If you have a weak link, more smaller packets are
likely to yield better performance because a smaller amount of data
needs to be resent in the event of a corruption.  Smaller packets give
more overhead though, so fewer larger packets will give better
performance on good links.  Right now, if you set these such that your
radio transmits for too long at a time (about 120 seconds) other bits
might time out, so just be aware of that for the moment.

[2] Eric twisted my arm hard enough that I decided to put this in.  The
method for doing this on Windows is dumb, takes about a second on a fast
machine, and can't tell the difference between an in-use port and a
non-existent port.  However, I don't use windows, so I won't feel the
pain of this.  Please let me know if this behaves for you.

[3] The warmup is a chunk of data sent before the real data to open up
the power save on a handheld and potentially "prime" the gateway.  It
has two settings, the size and the timeout.  The size is the number of
bytes in the warmup block, and the timeout is how long we have to be
silent in order to justify a warmup.  If we've transmitted recently, the
power save on a handheld is probably still open, so setting this lower
will help save bandwidth.  If you set the timeout to zero, it will
always send the warmup.

[4] The delay is a relatively un-intelligent delay I added to help
diagnose some gateway issues.  It's a literal delay period in seconds
before we start transmitting a series of blocks.  Setting it to a few
seconds should prevent the ACKs from a file transfer from going out too
quickly, and thus giving the gateway time to reset.

For reflector use, I expect that setting D-RATS up for smallish blocks
(~256), longer pipelines (maybe 8 or so), and a delay of maybe 4 seconds
or so.  Performance will be dismal (compared to wide-open on simplex)
but I think it might help a bit.

VK3UR, please report back on the map storage location change.
KD7CAO, please report back on the COM port detection piece.
N5VRP, please report back on the broken text color selection bit.

Thanks!

-- 
Dan Smith
dsmith#danplanet.com, s/#/@/
www.danplanet.com
KK7DS