I've been asked "what's different" about the K3 Utility version 1.2.3.18 that was made available on Elecraft's web site yesterday.
The most significant new "feature" is an editor for the K3's CW memories. These are the memories that you had to load by manipulating a paddle, you recall these memories by pressing M1 thorugh M4 on the K3 front panel. I read a report on this reflector about a CW enthusiast that had suffered a stroke and loved CW, but could no longer manipulate a paddle at speed. He's able to use a keyboard, though. He had a friend come over to program his rig's CW memories. In field test I was asked to include a "half space" character for people with interesting calls, like GM3SEK and K6XT. Both of these gentlemen find that an extra half-space in the right place often make a difference in getting their call understood the first time. So K6XT can enter K6X~T and get the timing he wants. For those of you who use the K3's internal paddle-to-RTTY feature, you may include the "IM" prosign that causes the RTTY carrier to drop immediately. Terminate your CW message with a vertical bar character "|". The CW memory editor is started by a button on the Configuration Tab. There is a K3 Utility Help page that describes the details of its use. There are a number of improvements in the general category of "accessibility" for visually impaired users. I want to thank Betsey Doane, K1EIC, and Gary Lee, KB9ZUV, for their help in educating this developer about some of the more important nuances of developing software that is available to a wider user audience than I had initially prepared for. They were patient as they evaluated a number of "false starts" of mine. The complete "release notes" file is available as a link on the K3 Software page, just above the link for the software itself. Here are the release notes: K3 Utility Version 1.2.3.18 changes since 1.2.1.6 (summary only): Installer: Changed from Setup2Go to Inno Setup installer. While the new installer handles release to release installations without uninstall, the new installer doesn't completely clean up files created by the old installer. Current K3 Utility users should be encouraged to uninstall the K3 Utility (using the Windows Control Panel Add/Remove programs applet) before installing the new version. It's not a critical requirement, but if you don't do this, there are some leftovers in the list of installed programs and the program files folder where the old program resided. Changed default location for program files to (systemdrive): Program Files\Elecraft\K3 Utility. The new installer will remember your override for default folder location. Uninstall is not a continuing requirement, just in the transition from one installer to another. Global changes: Help text has been revised in small ways throughout. Earlier versions of the K3 Utility used blocking serial port reads and writes with timeout, which caused UI delays when the K3 was unresponsive. Changed code throughout to use unblocked I/O, which keeps the UI responsive. A number of accessibility improvements were made so that the K3 Utility works better with screen readers for the visually impaired, and can now be operated without a mouse. Corrected a number of tab order issues. Added a new "Window" menu for direct access to each tab page. Added tab stops to some static labels so that screen readers will speak the content (primarily in the installed/available version area of the firmware page). Changed the tab control used by the main view so that the tab itself is part of the tab order, and its content will be spoken by a screen reader. Restore last-used window position and size. Improve wait cursor (hourglass) handling. Made adjustments to dialog control position to improve usability at 120 DPI. Allow release notes window to drop behind (in z-order) the K3 Utility window rather than always being "on top". Port page: Continue to poll (at various speeds) to attempt connection to a K3. The polling interval grows if no K3 responds. Added an explicit "close Port" button, which stops polling and releases the COM Port for other programs. Added checkbox to inhibit the automatic speed determination process and communicate with the K3 only at 38,400 bps. This was done to remove concerns that polling at several speeds might interfere with connection to a K3 in "MCU boot load" state. Firmware page: Firmware page is now resizable. Copy files from Elecraft (FTP) may now be cancelled. Speed improvements to all Firmware loaders. Read firmware files into memory before sending any part of the file to the K3. This offers some protection from broken firmware loads caused by network drive disconnect. After MCU load, recover the last-used RS-232 speed during post-load speed determination and restore that speed after firmware load is complete. The hope is that this speed better matches the last-used RS-232 speed than leaving the rig at 38,400 if the firmware load was started when the MCU was in "boot load" state. Improvement to DSP loader reliability in some USB to Serial Adapter error situations. Change Activity Log to a rich edit control to make copy to clipboard easier. Configuration Page: Do not write an incomplete configuration save file if an EEPROM read error is encountered. Read all the EEPROM into memory, and then write the file all at once. Increased persistence of configuration save/restore retry. Save and restore configuration may now be cancelled. Restore should be cancelled only if you're going to restore again. Reduce the time it takes to save and restore a configuration. New CW memory editor for the K3's CW and CW-to-Data mode memories. Supports CW half space and insertion of the "IM" stop character into a CW memory for use with RTTY and PSK31. Alternative "accessibility mode" version of the Crystal Filter dialog that works better with screen readers. The current compact version, which omits checkbox labels, is still available. A new View Menu "Accessibility" checked menu item selects the dialog to use. Added unsaved change warning to Crystal Filter dialog. Tx Gain calibration: interpret SWR of "--" to mean that the SWR hasn't been determined as yet, and this isn't a reason to stop calibration. Command Tester: Improved readability of responses to DSP commands. Terminal page: Ctrl+W clears unsent characters in input area. Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+0 embeds messages 1-10 into input area without requiring a mouse action. Clear clears unsent input as well as output windows. Fixed a CW stuttering bug when the Release Notes or other menu item was opened. Don't automatically drop out of transmit mode when sending CW. Return keyboard focus to the input area after clicking one of the message memory buttons. Dick, K6KR ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
