User Interface controls
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:09 am
Currently the User Interface controls are not ideal
The underlying GD77 user interface, expects the hardware to have more buttons than the MD-9600 / RT-90 has.
Specifically these radios do not have the Left or Right keypad keys, or the SK1 or SK2 buttons.
The radio also has a rotary control, but this is not the same as the rotary control on the GD77S.
The rotary control only senses whether its being rotated clockwise or anti-clockwise, and can be rotated around and around.
For the VFO and the Channel screen, the firmware uses the Rotary control in place of the Up and Down buttons, becuase this is the most logical thing to do on these screens, especially the VFO screen.
The front panel of the radio has Up and Down buttons, but because the rotary control is ideally suited to controling Up and Down on the VFO and Channel screens; on the VFO and Channel screens the Up and Down buttons are mapped to the Right and Left buttons in the user interface
This mapping allows changing of TG / Contact in the TRx group from the front panel in DMR mode, and in FM mode this allows the squelch to be changed.
However in the menu's there is not an obvious choice use for the Rotary Control, or the Up / Down buttons
Originally, I used the Rotary Control to go up and down though the menus, however some people preferred to use the Up and Down buttons to go up and down in the menus, so the firmware was changed to use that mapping.
So the current mapping uses the Rotary control as Left / Right in the menus
Personally I don't like this and would prefer the consistency of Rotary Control is always Up/Down and the front panel Up/Down are always Right/Left, and I may need to add an option into the settings to allow the operator to choose which method they prefer.
On the front panel, the Enter key is mapped to Green and the Esc/Band key is mapped to Red.
I think this is the most logical assignment and is not going to be changed
Currenltly the button P1 is mappeed to button SK2 (Blue) and P2 is mapped to SK1, becuase the GD77 user intergace makes most use of SK2, so it seemed more logical to use P1 for the most used button.
The firmware does not yet fully support things like Long Press of SK2 / P1 or SK1 / P2. However I will fully implement this when I have time.
Button P4 is currently mapped to the * STAR key to allow TS or FM bandwith to be changed from the front panel.
Using P3 as # HASH would not be logical, becuase # is used to enter the TG etc, and this needs to be done via the keypad on the mic.
So P3 may be allocated to some other use, perhaps Scan start
The mic keypad is also not ideal for the UI of the firmware, becuase it does not have Left/Right keys and also no SK2 or SK1 button.
Unfortunatly the electronics in the mic keypad is just a resistor network, so it is not posisble to accurately sense when more than one key is pressed at the same time.
But the mic does have keys A,B,C and D which are not on the GD77
So the current mapping is
"A/B" = Green
"A" = Red
"B" = Right
"C" = Left
Long press of "D" currently toggles latching of SK2, but this is functionality has problems becuase its easy to forget that SK2 has been latched, and this results in the UI not behaving as expected.
SK2 latch automatically releases after 3 seconds.
Currently we do not have any indication on the display that SK2 is latched, and potentially even if we keep "D" as some sort of SK2 functionality we should perhaps not latch it.
The underlying GD77 user interface, expects the hardware to have more buttons than the MD-9600 / RT-90 has.
Specifically these radios do not have the Left or Right keypad keys, or the SK1 or SK2 buttons.
The radio also has a rotary control, but this is not the same as the rotary control on the GD77S.
The rotary control only senses whether its being rotated clockwise or anti-clockwise, and can be rotated around and around.
For the VFO and the Channel screen, the firmware uses the Rotary control in place of the Up and Down buttons, becuase this is the most logical thing to do on these screens, especially the VFO screen.
The front panel of the radio has Up and Down buttons, but because the rotary control is ideally suited to controling Up and Down on the VFO and Channel screens; on the VFO and Channel screens the Up and Down buttons are mapped to the Right and Left buttons in the user interface
This mapping allows changing of TG / Contact in the TRx group from the front panel in DMR mode, and in FM mode this allows the squelch to be changed.
However in the menu's there is not an obvious choice use for the Rotary Control, or the Up / Down buttons
Originally, I used the Rotary Control to go up and down though the menus, however some people preferred to use the Up and Down buttons to go up and down in the menus, so the firmware was changed to use that mapping.
So the current mapping uses the Rotary control as Left / Right in the menus
Personally I don't like this and would prefer the consistency of Rotary Control is always Up/Down and the front panel Up/Down are always Right/Left, and I may need to add an option into the settings to allow the operator to choose which method they prefer.
On the front panel, the Enter key is mapped to Green and the Esc/Band key is mapped to Red.
I think this is the most logical assignment and is not going to be changed
Currenltly the button P1 is mappeed to button SK2 (Blue) and P2 is mapped to SK1, becuase the GD77 user intergace makes most use of SK2, so it seemed more logical to use P1 for the most used button.
The firmware does not yet fully support things like Long Press of SK2 / P1 or SK1 / P2. However I will fully implement this when I have time.
Button P4 is currently mapped to the * STAR key to allow TS or FM bandwith to be changed from the front panel.
Using P3 as # HASH would not be logical, becuase # is used to enter the TG etc, and this needs to be done via the keypad on the mic.
So P3 may be allocated to some other use, perhaps Scan start
The mic keypad is also not ideal for the UI of the firmware, becuase it does not have Left/Right keys and also no SK2 or SK1 button.
Unfortunatly the electronics in the mic keypad is just a resistor network, so it is not posisble to accurately sense when more than one key is pressed at the same time.
But the mic does have keys A,B,C and D which are not on the GD77
So the current mapping is
"A/B" = Green
"A" = Red
"B" = Right
"C" = Left
Long press of "D" currently toggles latching of SK2, but this is functionality has problems becuase its easy to forget that SK2 has been latched, and this results in the UI not behaving as expected.
SK2 latch automatically releases after 3 seconds.
Currently we do not have any indication on the display that SK2 is latched, and potentially even if we keep "D" as some sort of SK2 functionality we should perhaps not latch it.