[DXBase] Wish List for DX BASE 2005 - VERY LONG!

[Peter Dougherty]

Hi all,

First off, please forgive the length of this message. I think I've covered 
all the shortcomings and needed improvements that I've perceived since 
starting to use DX Base three years ago. Please make no mistake -- DX BASE 
is clearly the best logger there is -- by far -- but it DOES have some 
nasty shortcomings that I would desperately like to see either fixed or 
implemented in the coming release(s).

Some of these have already been discussed here in the past few months 
others I've just thought up tonight and still others have gone back to 
previous "wish lists" that were never acted upon. All are intended solely 
to make the best logger even better...they aren't criticisms or attacks at 
Jack or Courtney or anybody.

These are written from the point of view of a hard-core HF DX addict and 
heavy QSLer. You mileage may vary if you're into VHF-UHF, contesting, 
casual operating/ragchewing, etc.

1) My BIGGEST wish of all would be that DX Base would PLEASE use Windows 
standard keyboard shortcuts for things like opening new logs, saving to 
ADIF and ESPECIALLY navigation. For example:

CTRL + left/right arrow to move one word left or right within a field.
CTRL+SHIFT + left/right arrow to HIGHLIGHT AND MOVE one word to the left 
and right within a field.
SHIFT + HOME to highlight from the cursor position to the beginning of the 
field or line.
SHIFT + END to highlight from the cursor position to the end of the field 
or line.
CTRL+SHIFT + HOME to highlight from the cursor to the BEGINNING of the entry.
CTRL+SHIFT + END to highlight from the cursor to the END of the entry.

Try any of these in Word or Outlook or any other program on your system and 
you'll see how spectacularly easy it is to navigate without ever taking 
your hands off the keys. DX Base is the only program I've ever used that 
doesn't hold to most or all of these conventions.

CTRL + S to save the entire open document (in this case, the log, into ADIF 
format).
CTRL + N to start a new log.

2) Further to new logs, etc, Please don't key the program's registration 
codes to callsigns! I occasionally have guest operators in the shack and I 
want each of them to be able to put their own calls in the OPRCALL field 
(and for a club station this is even more important).

3) Why on earth can't I just simply drag column headers within the log to 
re-arrange column fields to suit my needs? This is INSANE. I can do it in 
Windows explorer and folder windows, in AA Log, within certain Excel 
spreadsheets, within WinZIP, WinRAR and literally DOZENS of other programs. 
The current field-order stand-alone application is ridiculous in that you 
can't reopen saved configurations -- if you make a mistake you redo 
everything. NUTS!

4) Can you please show the local time of the DX station? If I'm working 
somebody in East Malaysia I'd like to know roughly what his local time is 
so I can at least say "Good Morning" or "Enjoy your evening." Even more 
importantly, if I'm looking for a DX station in a certain part of the world 
it's nice to know if it's likely the local operators will be awake! Right 
now I use DX Atlas and it's pretty good, but why have the extra steps in 
there if they're not needed?

5) Mapping IOTA entries to DXCC entities. There are a good number of DXCC 
entities that are their own IOTA entry. For things like Canada or the US or 
the UK that have a couple of different IOTA references within their own 
borders it's fine for that particular field to be left blank. But in the 
case of entities like PW0S (SA-014), Dodecanese (EU-001), Montserrat 
(NA-103), Jamaica (NA-097), Cayman Islands (NA-016), these map 1:1 with 
IOTA references. To see a complete list of these mappings go to 
http://www.rsgbiota.org/pdfs/startup1.pdf. This chart should be extremely 
easy to map to prefixes.

6) Please try to find and finally resolve the 
lost-Internet-cluster-causing-100%-CPU-usage bug.

7) Regular updates and bugfixes. This drives me NUTS. I use N1MM as my 
contest logger and known bugs are getting resolved and new fixes 
implemented DAILY. I will GLADLY and HAPPILY pay for regular updates to DX 
Base (bugfixes should be timely and free). Waiting one year to fix either a 
simple annoyance or a major bug, in this day and age, is not just annoying 
but also bad customer relations. For example, a 60 Meter patch should have 
been posted as soon as that band went live (or preferably just before).

8) Easier Importing and Exporting. Again, this kind of thing is do-able 
from every other logger and most normal Windows applications like 
Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Excel, etc, etc. File/Import and File/Export 
with a drop-down list of supported formats then click the desired file and 
bingo. Done. Also, please consider importing some other proprietary log 
file formats to make switching to DX Base easier for people with other 
less-popular loggers.

9) When exporting to ADIF, allow the use of either the USB/LSB format or 
just simply use SSB for both. This is a major issue when exporting to 
certain other logging apps.

10) When exporting, how about not forcing OPRCALL data into the NOTES 
filed? This is incredibly annoying.

11) Allow the VHF Packet window to be closed and STAY CLOSED! I have 
broadband and use the Internet exclusively for spotting. I don't have VHF 
packet, never had and never will. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

12) "Previous QSO" toolbar and "Previous QSO" dialog are confusing.

13) Allow MESSAGES on the packet cluster to be cleared without having to 
restart the program. conversely, don't automatically erase previous 
messages when the program IS restarted. Clearing old messages should be a 
strictly manual operation unless an option to clear them automatically on 
program close is checked.

14) PLEASE allow integration of MMTTY and MMSSTV!

15) How about a built-in voice keyer/sequencer? For pileups these days this 
is a no-brainer. I presently use third-party software and regularly miss 
calling if the focus is on DX Base instead of the keyer. N1MM has this 
integrated with magnificent results in that contesting app.

16) A Data Entry window. DX Base is indeed the best logger there is on the 
market. However, its learning curve, especially for older operators, can be 
very intimidating. I would like to see an option that would bring up a NEW 
QSO dialog box that is easy for older operators to use in, for example, a 
club setting environment. One keystroke (for example, INSERT) brings up the 
box. You set the tab-field order on initial setup, and fill in the boxes 
one at a time (with auto complete of name, location, etc, from an installed 
CD-ROM). If you work the station whose call you enter in the box, you press 
a button marked LOG IT. If you don't get him, press one marked CLEAR THIS 
ENTRY (or CTRL + ENTER and ESCAPE keystrokes for those who don't like using 
mice).

For club stations with older or non-computer-friendly operators or those 
who are simply not logging gurus, having a simpler data-entry window would 
make a HUGE difference to the comfort level of users logging their 
contacts. Once again, I hold up N1MM and AALog as just two loggers that 
have implemented this functionality flawlessly.

17) Auto-Populating on import. Since DX Base is not a contest logger I 
don't attempt to use it as such. However, there is an annoying problem with 
importing ADIF logs into DX Base from another program. I have no way of 
identifying if any of the stations I worked in the contest are either new 
entities overall or new bands/modes or states, grid squares, etc. Can a 
mechanism be put into place that allows imported QSOs to be compared to the 
pre-contest database and new data (entities, prefixes, grid squares, 
states, IOTA numbers, etc) be output into a report on a per-QSO basis?

For example: Let's say I work two all-time new countries and fifteen new 
band-countries on 80 meters in the ARRL Int'l DX convention. There should 
be some mechanism or report that will output every QSO from that imported 
file that needs to be confirmed from that contest. Perhaps automatically 
generate labels for these Q's as well? This should be user-configurable 
since some people don't care about grid squares and others don't care about 
states or WPX, etc.

Also on the topic of autopopulation, on import the name and QTH fields 
should get populated from the CD-ROM. There is no way to do this right now 
after the record is saved.

18) As many have posted already, have a separate date record for LoTW 
confirmations received and sent.

19) How about colour-coding the confirmed/worked-not-confirmed grid to make 
it easier to see if an entity is needed or worked but not confirmed?

20) When populating the QSL Info database from CD-ROM and entering the data 
into the pending address labels, how about putting in the COUNTRY?!?! I 
have to manually edit EVERY SINGLE ENTRY other than US addresses, to 
include the country. On setup, The operator should be able to tell the 
application to whether to include the user's own country name in the QSL 
labels or not (i.e. an American probably  wouldn't want USA in outgoing 
labels, but a Canadian user would).

21) Please add proper SCROLL WHEEL SUPPORT. When a window is either passed 
over with the mouse or is highlighted (make this configurable either way), 
the scroll wheel should be able to scroll up or down any scrollable window.

22) Built-in solar-terrestrial indices. While IonoProbe does work wonders, 
I'd like to see solar info automatically get downloaded and displayed in 
the status window every hour or every three hours. Also one should be able 
to DL and display the text reports daily as well.

23) Beacon tracking!

24) Pasting into a blank pending labels field. If a field is blank you 
can't paste data into it cold. For example, if I need to paste the words 
SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN into line 5 of a pending address label I have to 
highlight from the source "OUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN" and enter then leading "S" 
into line 5. Editing existing data is OK, but not pasting into a blank field.

25) Deleting old QSL manager data. This is another really annoying 
"feature." If a popular club station has many different QSL managers over 
the years, they should rank starting from the most recent on downward to 
older, not the way it is now. This list should be dynamic so that if an 
update is received via something like the GO List or other auxiliary 
manager it should get bumped to the "top of the list" of managers.

It's also very difficult to purge old QSL manager data. You should be able 
to delete an old listing simply and easily from the QSL INFO window -- i.e. 
right-click and DELETE should be an option.


Whew. That's about all I can think of at the present time. I do sincerely 
hope Jack can bring even a few of these ones to the table for the 2005 
release. Thanks for reading. Comments are appreciated, of course.



73 de Peter (W2IRT)
w2irt@nac.net

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