Open SkyeDog opened 1 year ago
SkyeDog
commented
1 year ago Envisioning the overall WInlink System there are opportunities to substantially optimize the amount of data which has to be transmitted over radio by treating the transmission of the user input as a data 'Pipe' by taking advantage of the Form's presence in the Standard Forms Library at both ends of the circuits.
tmiw
commented
1 year ago Added this issue as an entry in the wiki: https://github.com/ARSFI/winlink-mail-client/wiki
SkyeDog
commented
1 year ago Thank you Mooneer.
Cheers, ..dan
On May 24, 2023, at 8:13 PM, Mooneer Salem @.***> wrote:
Added this issue as an entry in the wiki: https://github.com/ARSFI/winlink-mail-client/wiki
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ARSFI/winlink-mail-client/issues/7#issuecomment-1562197412, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFRDMWX7CXHQ2LSUGAZ246TXH3E5XANCNFSM6AAAAAAYNPHP4A. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
Up first wrt to Forms is to send only the End User input data and the Form’s unique Identification with the end user input and repopulate the form with ser’s input at the far end of each circuit i.e. wherever it is received,
This was one of the algorithms straight out of "K&R C Language 1972” re: implementation of *nix ‘pipes’.
It can be done while retaining all of the currently existing code that has evolved into the current set of Forms Libraries and capabilities changing only how the The Form’s message is prepped during runtime before being transmitted and again in reverse when the msg is received.
Source Code for fillable PDF Forms should be available as a place to start.
This will make sense only if you consider it in light of the prime use cases for Winlink Express - as a Contingency & Emergency information system for essential Disaster Response activities aka Emergency Service Functions.
A few of the Forms (like the NorCal Winlink Net Check In - found in the non standard forms page on Winlink.org) hardly adds any ‘overhead'.
OTOH, many of the best Form enhancements over the last several years have increasingly useful ‘help’ - explanations (like the Mercali seismic intensity scale explanation accessible in the DYFI form’s input screen) or instructions for replying to some of the ICS Forms and Form instructions which are user accessible while filling in the Form will have larger amounts of ‘overhead’ which could be greatly reduced or eliminated - without changing the Forms.
All of the information which is required to recreate any Standard Winlink Form at the recipient’s end(s) of the circuit(s) is already residing in every Receiving Station's Winlink Express’s Forms Library regardless of which client originates the Standard Form based messages.
Keep an eye on the transmission overhead and transmission sizes - compared to the size of the User input data when using any of the Standard Forms over time and the potential savings in transmission size & time to transmit. Comparing it to transmitting just the user's input and the savings will probably surprise you.
When there are multiple recipients of a transmission, the ‘overhead', however large or small & however it is encoded or compressed, per recipient of the same Form, is multiplied by the number of recipients.
The magic smoke of Winlink’s Forms based Contingency and Emergency Communications is the User input data getting where it needs to be as expeditiously as possible.
I readily concede that there are more useful open source enhancements to be made prior to this issue surfacing as a 'too little, too late’ concern for most users.
Cheers & 73, dan sohn, wl7coo
(MS: Copied from https://github.com/ARSFI/winlink-mail-client/issues/3#issuecomment-1559886103 and https://github.com/ARSFI/winlink-mail-client/issues/3#issuecomment-1560420151.)