ASCII display box?

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23 Jun 2015 21:38 #34569 by mwm
ASCII display box? was created by mwm
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?

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24 Jun 2015 05:04 #34580 by FDR
Replied by FDR on topic ASCII display box?
We had a similar discussion in the past, but that idea had died.
Read this thread , probably from this point:
www.deviationtx.com/forum/3-feedback-que...es?limitstart=0#4894

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24 Jun 2015 05:16 #34581 by mwm
Replied by mwm on topic ASCII display box?
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.

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24 Jun 2015 05:27 #34582 by FDR
Replied by FDR on topic ASCII display box?
Ah OK, that's fine...
But I also like the those virtual switches in that thread, which actually turned into reality since now you can rename a virtual channel, and use them as switches, but we have too limited virtual channels....

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24 Jun 2015 06:37 #34584 by FDR
Replied by FDR on topic ASCII display box?
OK, I gave it some more thoughts.
If I'm not mistaken, what you are after is a kind of a text mixer, in which you can give texts for every mixer page defined by a switch.
It could be implemented as a separate mixer type, or better integrate it into the current mixer. There should be an optional text field on every mixer page, and the mixer would calculate the resulting text when it calculates the channel value as well. I hope it wouldn't add too much overhead...
This way the mane page layout could use both channel value, and channel text widgets.
The question is what to do with the empty values. They could default to the name of the source or rather the switch, whitch can be a properly named virtual channel BTW.
Actually, this way if you add an image selection too to the mixer, the mane page could use it's result as well as a channel image...

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24 Jun 2015 06:49 #34585 by mwm
Replied by mwm on topic ASCII display box?
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.

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24 Jun 2015 07:47 #34586 by FDR
Replied by FDR on topic ASCII display box?
Oh yeah, I unlike the way how toggles work.
It is not flexible enough: you are limited to the states of one and only switch., so can't combine more of them to meet the requirements of current flight controllers with more then three flight modes...

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24 Jun 2015 08:07 #34587 by mwm
Replied by mwm on topic ASCII display box?
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?

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24 Jun 2015 08:28 #34588 by FDR
Replied by FDR on topic ASCII display box?
Yes, I think it would be fine otherwise.
You could define both images and texts for each state, and then you could use different widgets to display the image and/or text on the main page layout...

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24 Jun 2015 08:34 #34589 by FDR
Replied by FDR on topic ASCII display box?
...however there is a drawback of text displays: they probably won't be translated, which would make sharing the config files less useful.
I know that you only need to change a few words in the config, but there are people who would struggle with that...

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24 Jun 2015 15:56 #34597 by Moeder
Replied by Moeder on topic ASCII display box?
+1 for text variables to display switch state

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

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03 Jul 2015 23:27 #35068 by Richard96816
Replied by Richard96816 on topic ASCII display box?
a belated +1 for text to display switch state.

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