[MacLoggerContest] Musings on the Contest Panel

[David Ferrington, M0XDF]

I took part in the RSGB AFS SSB contest on Saturday  - the first significant contest I've had a chance to play in since MLDX contest panel was change - that is, use it for real.

Overall, I found it to be really easy and worked very well.

I started a new log for this, that means the dup indicator really is a dup on this contest.
I set Rcvd & Sent RST to 59 (being an HF SSB contest) and then hid them. I hid everything except the Call and Rcvd & Sent Sn fields. I set sn to increment and stopped lookup, opened the Contest helper and away we went.

Before doing that, I set the following Keyboard shortcuts via System Prefs:

cmd and + = Log QSO & Clear Fields - I find the combo of ctrl-cmd-L to be very awkward to use in a contest and for some reason, I couldn't get cmd-return to work and wasn't going to reboot before the contest. Having just upgraded to 10.6, I find this combo works now and much easier than the default.
As an aside, I'm really surprised that Don choose to use ctrl-cmd-L as the keystrokes to log a QSO since it seams to be such a significant and common function - but I'm sure he has his reasons and it's easy to remao.


I would have used Function keys, but I couldn't get them to remap - this may be an issue with X Keys and Keyboard Shortcuts not working together - I'll investigate that.
I set cmd-F to be focus VFO, using ctrl-cmd-F just seemed more complex and I can't see a default setting of cmd-F
I do this because I use my PowerMate to browse frequency.

That meant to make a logged QSO I  focused on Call field, entered the call (I search & pounce), tabbed and entered the sent serial no. and pressed cmd-return. Then cmd-F to focus on the VFO and moved up the band.


What wasn't quite so convenient:
To move from the VFO focus to the Call field required a placement of the cursor into the call field, since tabbing there was too long. I've just discovered there is a Focus Call menu item, that I had missed, so I'll map that.

What would make life easier:
A Log QSO, Clear Fields and Focus VFO Shortcut would be very nice, but that is a bit 'me' focused.

Ideally, 'Return' would perform a Log QSO and Clear Fields when all the visible fields are non-blank, return not being needed for lookup, because people don't lookup during a contest (well not often and that could be a pref setting), and a second option would be to allow that to focus VFO too - but then that really is very  much a personal thing.
Don and I have been through that one and I don't think it's going to happen, but hears hoping!


All in All, a good solution to the Contesting side of MLDX and very good now.


-- 
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty.
I only think about how to solve the problem.
But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful,
I know it is wrong.
-R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)

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