Would Maestro Special Visibility Modes be Possible?

Steve K9ZW

I could be useful if the Maestro had what essentially amounts to "Skins" for special visibility needs such as:

• Low Light Scheme - along the likes of "Night Shift" in iOS/OSX

• Night Vision Preservation Scheme - mention by K3TIM as desirable when multi-tasking in an observatory.

• Red-Green Color Blindness Assist Scheme - aimed at improving contrast for the roughly 17% of the population who are Red/Green Color Blind.

• High Contrast Mode - for use when in brighter lighting where the fainter grays and blues are washed out approaching becoming invisible.

Could be very helpful to have presets if a full skin-type opportunity was not available.

73

Steve K9ZW

Dave - W6OVP

Good ideas.

KY6LA_Howard

I would add 'a request AGAIN for a more visible color palette. I personally am severely challenged to see the red on black meters due to lack of sufficient contrast. Both Stu K6TU and Marcus DL8MRE have fixed the color palates in their apps so people like me can read the meters.

Norm - W7CK

I agree Howard.  For the life of me, I can't seem to even read the Maestro manual where on Page 8 and 10 it is listing the controls and connectors.  Black lettering on a dark blue background.  I just can't read it.  I'm all for a better color palette.  Seems to me it would be a simple enhancement.   Shoot, if one wanted to get fancy, maybe even make it user modifiable.

KY6LA_Howard

The solution of course is to put a 50+ Year old programmer on the palette issue. It is pretty obvious that the kids who program do not understand the invisibility issue.

Steve K9ZW

That could work, but let's not rule some of these sharp young folk who "get it."

The person who did this same GUI color/schemes work for a software firm I've been involved with was a very hip Millennial who was into the improved impact his work could bring when tailored to specific visual needs. 

They did a fair bit with mouse/hover-over, some zoom features and some voice-over things for their package. 

The sharp eyes of youth do make a lot of this stuff non-issues for "kids" unless they happen to have that spirit & desire to make their work "shine for every set of eyes!"

73

Steve K9ZW

Al_NN4ZZ

Hi Howard,
Those same color scheme complaints (or suggestions) have been brought  up for the SSDR for Windows application.    Hopefully both platforms will be addressed eventually and in order.  

Some of the SSDR for Windows requests have been on the idea list for years now.  Here is one good example that is 3 years old.  I know you and many others  have been in favor of this one.  

https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/idea_to_improve_the_swr_and_power_scale_readability

IMHO -- It might be a good idea to put someone on the QA team to focus on GUI usability feedback.   And since it's much cheaper to catch issues at the earliest stage possible, this should really be a part of the design review process before programming even starts.  


Regards, Al / NN4ZZ  
al (at) nn4zz (dot) com
6700 - HW.................... V 1.6.21.77
SSDR / DAX / CAT...... V 1.6.21.159
Win10

KY6LA_Howard

Al I am part of the Alpha team...when I get back to the states next week I intend to raise the level of consciousness of the developers as to the need to fix the color palette sooner rather than later. 3 years of being unable to read the invisible screens is a long time.

VK7WH Winston

I have the same difficulty in reading the meters Howard. Using a low luminance colour such as dark red, over a low luminance background such as black is very difficult to read, especially when the letters and numbers are very small. This is also true for high luminance colours such as bright yellow, which should NEVER be used against a white background, however I do commend Flex for making some improvements with the Maestro colour palette. Now, if Flex could only find some way to fix my failing hearing

VK7WH Winston

Agree, or perhaps a 75 year old retired Television Broadcast Engineer

Dave - W6OVP

On the general subject of VISIBILITY, when using a single slice (that's most of the time) I would like to be able to use nearly the entire screen to maximize the size of the action. I realize there are both size and perhaps aspect ratio constraints, but over half of the screen is wasted by a waterfall when eyes are already straining to separate the important stuff. I really do miss the larger screen of a PC and think we can improve the viz here by making some changes. (Maybe I missed something in the manual ... ?)

(Let me say here that after using MAESTRO for a couple of days I'm REALLY IMPRESSED with what I see. It's obvious that a lot of serious work has gone into this project and I think the results are ground breaking. Congrats to all for a job very well done!)

Samuel Strongin

I totally agree that was the first thing I tried to do!