I hope I don't step on toes too badly with this one, but this perceived problem stymies me. I spend a lot of time with high level design of human/machine interfaces in my day job. One of the functions of my job is to make it make sense for the end user and push my engineers in that direction. It takes a lot of cattle prodding sometimes to get the engineers to bend in the direction of the user.
I studied the FlexControl lights and FlexControl Window in details. I produced an Excel sheet with some charting of the logic of the FlexControl lights VS the condition of the boxes in the FlexControl window. I have attached it. The spreadsheet has a lot more detail. I'm sure there is some logic that the designer(s) had in mind with the lights and their correlation to the FlexControl Window's boxes. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what the point is of the "toggle" light as it is now used. Nor do the names on lights seem to have any real meaning, considering it is completely programmable. Even in the default state, the meanings are questionable. It needs to make sense to the user, not the designer. The bottom line are these points:. There are only 4 logical states possible within Knob Settings. Yet, there are 8 possible light conditions. (see spreadsheet) The condition of the knob logic and not easily be ascertained at a glance without going through a logic chart in your head. Even then, it can't be 100% ascertained. The meaning of the toggle light as now implemented is pointless, as you see the toggles on the PowerSDR window, like the swapping of the VFO or toggle of the VFO TX. A light is not needed. Lights are only needed for the condition of the knob functions or functions that are hidden and not shown in PowerSDR's main screen. The names on the lights are meaningless (Mode, On/Off, Toggle) for the most part, especially considering they can be completely reprogrammed. Plain would have been better where one could lay an overlay on them. With names permanently printed on them, I can't do an overlay. This is my opinion only of course and YMMV. And there are so many ways to do this. But if a designer can, please try to enlighten me to the underlying concept of the lights, AFTER you have studied my spreadsheet. 73, Scott AC8DE _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software.
