GPSd GPIOd support

[leventelist]

I've been using my own logger for a while, but this one is far better. However, I'd add some of the features from my own program (llog).

• Automatic QTH and SOTA reference fill using a connection to gpsd.
• GPIOd keyer. It is really helpful if you are doing SOTA with a minimal computer. It is implemented in recent FLDIGI, so technically it has been solved already, but it would be better to have this feature without it.

The question to the maintainer if these are good ideas, and if they would possibly be merged. If they are not, I wold not start working on them.

Thanks for the wonderful code.

[foldynl]

I'm sorry, but it's not possible to determine exactly what you mean from the brief description.

Automatic QTH and SOTA reference fill using a connection to gpsd.

Do you want to extend only Setting->Station Profile with the possibility that Grid, SOTA, POTA will be automatically filled in after pressing a button or how the position will be used in QLog? What are your ideas about how it should work on Windows and Mac? What are your ideas about how the connection to GPSd will be defined (new setting)? Will you use the Qt Positioning module to unify access to generic positioning devices?

GPIOd keyer. It is really helpful if you are doing SOTA with a minimal computer. It is implemented in recent FLDIGI, so technically it has been solved already, but it would be better to have this feature without it.

I assume it will only be available on Linux, correct? Is it possible to implement this on Windows and MacOS?

[leventelist]

Yes, that is what I implemented. Exactly how you described. It should have a new settings with GPSd host and port. I don't know anything about Qt Positioning.

Yes, GPIOd only supports Linux. I'm not sure if you can run Qlog on Raspberry Pi, so I would not target that.

[foldynl]

Yes, that is what I implemented. Exactly how you described. It should have a new settings with GPSd host and port. I don't know anything about Qt Positioning.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t accept that. More settings mean more potential problems; all changes just for a single button single minor function. The Qt positioning system is an abstraction layer that ensures everything works the same across Linux, macOS, and Windows. That’s essential for a cross-platform application.

In my opinion, the only acceptable solution is one where the user doesn’t have to configure anything; The position should be obtained automatically and it will work under Linux/Mac/Windows. That’s the challenge and the approach I’d like QLog to take. Smartphones also have no setting where GPSd is running and which port must be used etc.

Yes, GPIOd only supports Linux. I'm not sure if you can run Qlog on Raspberry Pi, so I would not target that.

So this change targets only a narrow group of users who run QLog on a Raspberry Pi with keyer connected via GPIO. Honestly, I don’t know how many such users there are. I once experimented with compiling for the RPi, and there was a problem with QWebEngine, which wasn’t commonly included in the distribution. With the arrival of Flatpak, the situation changed, and it is now possible to run QLog on the RPi. But, as I said, I don’t have exact numbers of users.

However, I still don’t understand how you want to do it. Is your plan to implement something like CWDaemon directly in QLog; handling correct timing and all the other issues related to sending CW? In my opinion, this doesn’t belong in QLog. It would be great to have all of that already built into for example CWDaemon, if it isn’t already. QLog already has an interface to CWDaemon, so it could easily be integrated afterward. But a direct implementation of keying in QLog does not belong there. Qlog is not a keyer application, it is a logging application.