"Meter" button to send CAT string to a port [FEATURE]

[w-u-2-o]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

With all of your work on meter comm's, and observing your recent development of a two way comm's widget (rotator control), adding a macro button widget now seems like it might be a quick, and very useful, addition.

Note: should any instance that offers control be called a "widget" or some other name that distinguishes it from a "meter"?

Describe the solution you'd like

• A meter widget that offers one or more buttons that, when clicked, send an arbitrary text string to a COM, TCP or UDP port.
• Provide an option via escape character (e.g. /n) to add carriage return and/or line feed.
• Setup to include a button label and color.
• Consider adding a bistate or toggle capability, i.e. a button that has label 1, color 1 and string 1, then when clicked sends string 1 and toggles to label 2, color 2 and string 2, then when clicked again sends string 2 and goes back to the "1" state.

Describe alternatives you've considered

This is already possible in an non-organic way by using a number of tools such as DDUtil, NodeRed, Stream Deck, etc.

Additional context

This feature would nominally be used to send CAT strings to other devices including amp's, tuners, switches, etc.

Any string for any reason could be sent to any port, not necessarily CAT strings. For instance, one could send the Windows OS commands using Telnet (ref: https://phoenixnap.com/kb/telnet-windows) in order to start programs, run .cmd files, etc.

Strings might consist of more than one CAT command, hence the desire for embedding escape characters for carriage returns for devices that require them.

CAT strings could even be sent back into Thetis itself via the TCP/IP server port, thereby allowing more automation in Thetis without requiring further code development.

Cheers, Richie!

Thanks,

Scott/wu2o

[ramdor]

sounds like a good idea Scott. I am going to be adding CAT output for true/false state on the new led widget shortly, so that conditionals can cause cat message to enter into the system, ie turn mox off if power above x watts. I am also working on the vfo control right now, and have it so that it can be adjusted. I am busy for a week or more, so dev will slow down a tad.

[w-u-2-o]

That's great, Richie! It's clear that your work could be the basis for an all-new UI. Perhaps the next widget should be a spectral display widget 😉

How hard would it be for all of the containers to live in a "super-container" that is connected via TCP and UDP to an instance of Thetis acting as a server?

Cheers!

Scott

On Sun, Jul 28, 2024 at 2:05 AM Richie @.***> wrote:

sounds like a good idea Scott. I am going to be adding CAT output for true/false state on the new led widget shortly, so that conditionals can cause cat message to enter into the system, ie turn mox off if power above x watts. I am also working on the vfo control right now, and have it so that it can be adjusted. I am busy for a week or more, so dev will slow down a tad.

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[ramdor]

they do live in a super container, it is called Windows ;)

I have been thinking about this button grid system. I really want to have some feedback method, so if a button is defined as one that switches mute off/on through a cat command for example, then pressing the button on the main UI is still reflected on the grid.... hmm.

R.

[w-u-2-o]

It might be easiest to do this as a pull/pole when defining buttons. For instance, if the paradigm is going to be as I suggested, i.e. any arbitrary command, nominally CAT, then there could be an option for an equally arbitrary polling string, then a set of conditionals for color, etc. that parse the string returned by the poll. Poll on startup, poll on any button state change.