[drats_users] [D-RATS] #25: Re-introduce Stations Tab

[Dan Smith]

>  Versions 0.2 had a Stations Tab that would display a list of
>  stations received through D-RATS and indicate how long ago they
>  were last seen.

I've been dancing around this for a while and I think it deserves some
discussion to make sure it's done properly.

I want to avoid adding a top-level stations tab that becomes a
catch-all for remote operations.  Once we started holding actual
performance-based training sessions here locally, it became quickly
apparent that people do not think of going to the stations tab when
they want to request a file or message.  Rather, they go to the file
menu or forms tab and look around.  The 0.2.x placement made sense to
me initially because I was going to request an object from a
particular station, but I've seen enough people struggle with it in
real use that I think it's the wrong way to represent those actions in
the UI.

Given the above, I think that dedicating a top-level tab to a simple
list of stations and when they were last seen would be a little
overkill.  Would you agree?

I thought about integrating it into the Events tab somehow, but I
think that would get too confusing and be similarly unintuitive.

Some options are:

1. Try to integrate that into the map display.  This would mean that
   stations in the list at the bottom of the map would have a "last
   seen" column.  I don't really like this because lately people have
   a lot of other stuff on their map which may leave a bunch of
   instances of "Never" all over the place.

2. Add a "Stations" side-bar to the main window that can be hidden, if
   desired.  This would likely show just the callsign with info if you
   hover the mouse pointer over a station.  Perhaps a shortened
   time-since string like "KK7DS (18 min)" or something would be
   appropriate.

I *think* that option #2 above would be my preference, but I'm not
completely sure.  Should I work up a faked screenshot of it for
comments and discussion?

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