ASCII display box?

The discussion on suggestions from a new user (always a good thing, because they won't have absorbed our assumptions about how things should be yet) got me thinking about using names in the display instead of icons.

My long-term plan has been to implement something like "flight modes" in OpenTx. That would give you multiple states, the ability to name them, and the ability to use them as switches. That way, you could set up the flight modes, instead of having to remember the switch assignments we just picked out while setting up the other channels in the model.

The first step is finished but on hold, because the changes don't fit on the 7E - not by a long shot. However, a different first step - having a display box depend on inputs - wouldn't be all that hard. This would work like the current toggle icons: pick a switch or channel, then input 2 or 3 short strings (or leave it blank) to display in the box depending on the value of the selected switch/channel.

I'm not convinced about the usefulness beyond flight modes, but maybe that's my choice of platforms. They tend to not have things beyond the flight modes that really benefit from more than an ON/OFF icon.

Anyone (other than Richard, presumably) think this would be useful over and above the existing icon facility?

Well, I can see why the flight modes stuff died - it's a PITA to make work. I've been thinking about it off and on for months now.

But this thread isn't supposed to be about flight modes.

It's supposed to be about a new type of display for the main page. It would be a display box - like channel values, or telemetry, or etc. But the value would work like toggle icons, in that you'd point at a switch or channel, and get to enter either two or three (for a 3-way switch) strings to display for those values.

That way, instead of trying to make do with icons, I can have flight modes of "Camera", "Stable" or "Agile" displayed.

No, you're way off what's I'm thinking about. It's got NOTHING to do with mixers or mixes.

Think about the way toggle icons work. You pick a switch or source. Then to configure it, you can pick either two icons, or three icons if it's a 3-way switch. When you add a toggle icon to the main page, it will display one of the selected icons, depending on the value of the switch or channel. A channel is treated the same way it is if you use it as a switch in a mixer: either on or off.

What I'm thinking about is that kind of thing, except instead of selecting icons, you get to input a text string. And instead of adding a little icon box to the main page, you'd add a box (either large or small).

So now, instead of having to pick an icon from an outdated set, I can put in a text string like "Recording", or "FLIP MODE", or others as noted.

I don't like the way toggles work either. So I fixed it. See the pull request bitbucket.org/deviationtx/deviation/pull...-the-new-toggle-code for a fix that makes toggles work more like mixers. There are links to wiki entries describing everything in it. Loved it for my quads with 4 or more flight modes.

Combing that code with the ASCII display modes listed here would be 2/3rds of the way to real flight modes. Of course, the last third is the hard part.

So - what do you think of providing ASCII strings as well as icons for toggles on the display?

+1 for text variables to display switch state

After all, icons aren't translated either. So it would actually give us more flexibility.

a belated +1 for text to display switch state.