Idea: Modification to programmable MODE buttons in SSDR/Win

Ken - NM9P

It just hit me that having a pull down MODE selector AND three programmable mode buttons on the slice flag is actually redundant and unnecessary.  If you right click on any of the three other mode buttons, then select a mode, the button is programmed for that mode.  If you click it again, then you go to that mode.

However:  If they changed the function of those buttons so that when you right clicked the button and selected a mode it went directly to that mode, then you could eliminate the pull-down and replace it with a fourth programmable button identical to the other three.  That would give us FOUR programmable MODE buttons that would also function as pull downs.  

The downside would be that using them as such would always change whichever button you used.  (But if you simply want to use a pull down, there is still one on the control panel)

The upside would be that for most of my operation, I only use about four different modes - LSB, USB, CW & RTTY.  (WSJT-X selects DigU automatically)

What would make this even more effective would be to make the programmable mode settings persistent for each band, so that I could have my own custom Mode buttons for each band, for example:

160M = LSB, CW, RTTY, DigU
80M = LSB, CW, AM, RTTY
20M = USB, CW, RTTY, DigU
10M = USB, AM, CW, FM
6M  = USB, CW, FM, DigU

For that matter, perhaps the button width could be shrunk just enough to squeeze FIVE buttons in for both MODE and Filter width.  If all of them were programmable, then everyone would be happy....except, perhaps the programming team!  [grin]

Ken - NM9P

Bill -VA3WTB

Sounds like a good Idea Ken, I have alway wondered why there are two sets of controls,,on the slice,,and on the control panel.

One thing I would like is to put the record and playback buttons up on the top bar above the slice and make them bigger.

Ken - NM9P

I'll have to agree... the record and playback buttons are a bit small and hard to find when I am in a hurry working a rare DX station.....

But I haven't found a good place to put them yet.  Perhaps on the top line of the RX part of the control panel?  

There are several different 3rd party programs that have the ability to access the record & playback buttons.  DDUTil, FRStack, Slicemaster, I think all do, in addition to others that I am sure I am forgetting.  (I'm not in the shack right now to pull them up and check them) 


BTW:  on a slightly related note:

I was reading some very old posts from 5 years ago and saw a proposal for a pop-out panel with about 20 or so programmable buttons that could be programmed for my favorite functions - i.e. antenna selection, Favorite Filters, VOX, WNB, memoy frequencies, Record, Playback, RX EQ Settings, etc.

It would be nice to have this integrated into SSDR with the ability to simply make my own combination macros using API commands.  If I had this, then I may not need to request specific GUI modifications!  ha.

Ken - NM9P