[Elecraft] [K3] UTILITY Improvements

[Brian Alsop]

I think you guys have to look at some recent  history.  Even in this day 
and age ASCII like files are use extensively--even for new applications..
For example ADIF and Cabrillo files (LOTW and contest logging programs)  
  These are not necessarily small files.  ADIF files do have the "tags" 
people seem to thing are really important.   I don't know about other 
programs,  but I have several whose initialization (.INI) files are also 
ASCII.
.  
They can be read and manipulated with any old text editor.  

My butt has been saved many times by having the ability to directly read 
and replace pieces of the above files simply.   I can't say the same for 
other magic file formats.  

Going to something like XML is shooting many people in the foot.

The pencil and paper clip are still alive.  Reason: they do the job 
simply and cheaply.

For me, I guess it really won't matter.  The maximum number of memories 
that I'll ever be able to reliable associate with buttons is a few.   
Scrolling through 99 choices to find what I want just doesn't seem very 
appealing.   

73 de Brian/K3KO

Tom Childers, N5GE wrote:

>On Tue, 1 Jul 2008 19:47:55 -0700, "Dick Dievendorff" <dieven at comcast.net>
>wrote:
>
>  
>
>>We can't introduce a dependency on a fee product like Microsoft Excel.
>>However there are a number of free XML editors.   And comma-separated
>>variable files can be manipulated with other tools.
>>
>>
>>Dick, K6KR
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>
>[snip]
>
>I agree that fee based products are not a good solution.
>
>Delimited files like CSV files would be smaller, but harder to read and
>understand by humans.
>
>XML files require more storage, but the description of each field goes along
>with the data.  In the case where data layout changes rapidly XML would be the
>better choice, because software that reads the data could be more flexible when
>fields are added or taken away.
>
>Tom, N5GE
>
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