Log4OM

I have been printing QSL cards of late, which has made me wish for a few improvements in the process:

1.) When the Label Management window is open on the QSO Analysis tab, there are some great features there, including the QRZ.com and HamQTH buttons on both the Callsign of the station worked, and for the QSL manager. These are very useful helpful! But, what would also be very helpful, is a way to open up the station's Update QSO edit window from this dialog, as there are times when you find something in QRZ for instance, and you want to make some notes in the station's QSL information. Yes, you can update the Address, QSK Via, QSK Message and Comment fields from this dialog, but you have to print a label and save the changes in order for the qso record to be updated. And at times I want to change another field in the qso record which is not in the Label Management field layout. Often times, I want to add notes, sort of work in progress, and I am not printing labels yet, so those changes are not saved. So a button on the QSO Analysis window to open the QSO record would be very helpful. Yes, I know about the QSL Assistant feature. It may be helpful, and update some of the fields, but I would still like to get to the full record via a button. And it would be helpful to have a button on the QSL Assistance window to bring up the Update QSO window also.

2.) Now that I have opened the Update QSO record, I can't do anything else within Log4OM because that window is modol (you can't do anything with the program until the modol window is closed). I see no reason for that window to be modol. It just makes the software harder to use. In my view, modol should only be used where you have to have action to resolve something before carrying on with normal operations. it would be very useful to have the Update QSO window open and still work on the Label Management window AND other parts of the program.

3.) Not really part of Label printing, but related to 2.) above; when you click on a grid in the Statistics and Awards window, a Show QSL window appears displaying qso records related to the Country, Band and mode of the square clicked on. This window should also not be modol. You can't do anything else with this window open other than open up one of the qso records. Makes the program harder to use.

4.) The Label Management window should be sizable. There are times when it would be helpful to make the window larger vertically to see more records at one time, and also wider to see more fields at the same time.

5.) In the Label management window, QSO Selection tab, it would be helpful if the Station Callsign were sticky. In other words, open this dialog up with the last station callsign selected. I have a few contacts from another Station callsign, and it sorts ahead of my normal station callsign. EVERY time I open up this dialog, I have to reselect my Station callsign in order to see any search results.

6.) When you set a QSL Sent status to something other than null, say Queued, then want to change it back to null, then Save and Exit, the status is not changed. It remains in Queued. If we can't change to null, then null (or blank) should not be able to be selected in the drop down list. But better to be able to select null and have it stick.

Thanks for reading all this. Hopefully these suggestions can be considered.

Doug - W7DRM

W7DRM wrote:I have been printing QSL cards of late, which has made me wish for a few improvements in the process:

1.) When the Label Management window is open on the QSO Analysis tab, there are some great features there, including the QRZ.com and HamQTH buttons on both the Callsign of the station worked, and for the QSL manager. These are very useful helpful! But, what would also be very helpful, is a way to open up the station's Update QSO edit window from this dialog, as there are times when you find something in QRZ for instance, and you want to make some notes in the station's QSL information.

Yes, it's possible.

2.) Now that I have opened the Update QSO record, I can't do anything else within Log4OM because that window is modol (you can't do anything with the program until the modol window is closed).

Grids behind the modal form will receive an update command when you close the grid, forcing them to reload affected data.
Making the form not modal allow you to open a QSO for changes, but everything is still using the old QSO data.
When you save the form data, every change made in the meanwhile will be overwritten with data that resides in the modal form.

As example, if you open a qso and then change the QSL RCVD status frrom QSL Management, when you save the QSO the data is reverted to the previous value (if not changed). Making the form modal will ensure the Whole software is seeing the same "version" of the QSO informations at the same time.

3.) Not really part of Label printing, but related to 2.) above; when you click on a grid in the Statistics and Awards window, a Show QSL window appears displaying qso records related to the Country, Band and mode of the square clicked on. This window should also not be modol. You can't do anything else with this window open other than open up one of the qso records. Makes the program harder to use.

I'll check if i can change that. Probably yes

4.) The Label Management window should be sizable. There are times when it would be helpful to make the window larger vertically to see more records at one time, and also wider to see more fields at the same time.

ok

5.) In the Label management window, QSO Selection tab, it would be helpful if the Station Callsign were sticky. In other words, open this dialog up with the last station callsign selected. I have a few contacts from another Station callsign, and it sorts ahead of my normal station callsign. EVERY time I open up this dialog, I have to reselect my Station callsign in order to see any search results.

Ok

6.) When you set a QSL Sent status to something other than null, say Queued, then want to change it back to null, then Save and Exit, the status is not changed. It remains in Queued. If we can't change to null, then null (or blank) should not be able to be selected in the drop down list. But better to be able to select null and have it stick.

Doug - W7DRM

Every QSO record SHOULD have a valid value there. A valid value is REQUIRED to Log4OM to work correctly.
When you IMPORT data, this could occasionally be blank, but this could drive to unexpected issues. This value is part of a value list that, for many reasons, i made mandatory this field.