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Hi John,

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Thanks for the explanation. While I know HTML, CSS, and JS intimately, C is above my pay grade! That does put a small spanner in the works as I was hoping to be able to do this without too much work for you, by simply editing the templates. Spitballing some potential approaches:

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1. Modify the existing template strings in the C source code. This seems like it would be very awkward - having the HTML and C code mixed together seems like a recipe for a lot of headaches.
2. Go back to having the HTML in separate files. The C code would load the template from disk, all the data could simply be printed into an object in a script tag, then assembled into the page using Handlebars (on the client). This would avoid having to do the string replacement in C, which I imagine is quite fragile. You can see a basic example of how this would work . Handlebars also has a concept called "Partials", so things like the main menu can be written once, then reused on multiple pages. You would also get proper syntax highlighting and formatting in your editor, rather than just bunched up strings.
3. Leave everything as is, and build a new REST API. Provide endpoints such as /api/main-config and /api/node-list which return a JSON object containing the data, which can then be used by any kind of custom front end. This would be very versatile, especially for things like the node list and link status, as it could also be used in scripting, not just in a web front end. I would probably build a separate program using NodeJS that provides a custom front end, but others could do something similar using PHP, Python, or any other language. I'm sure other people would appreciate being able to get at this data for use in monitoring scripts, Discord bots, or other innovative things like that.
4. Use to create a hybrid approach. This would involve creating new endpoints that return small chunks of HTML, rather than whole pages (e.g. /api/main-config would return just the form). This means the chunks could remain in the C code (although it would be easier to manage them in dedicated files) and use most of your existing logic.
5. "Gaffer tape" scraper. Add a single JS file that essentially scraped the data out of the existing compiled HTML (as it's delivered to the client), and then rebuilt the page using this data. This would mean no extra work on your part at all, but would be a bit more fragile if you did change anything, and isn't a very efficient way of doing things.

I think my personal preference of order would be 3, 2, 4, 5, 1. As I mentioned, a REST API would be very versatile for all sorts of uses, not just the web front end. Each approach has it's pros and cons, and would involve varying amounts of work for you, so I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

Hello everyone. Are there any issues with adding a SSID to the TALK Node Application? Such as KA3VSP-2?

Best,

Brian, KA3VSP

Does the default (bandwidth) setting for a VARA port impact outbound only, or

does it impact incoming connections also?

Thanks,

Lee K5DAT

This is primarily for John G8BPQ, but I would be interested in other opinions too.

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I am a web developer with 20 years experience and I would like to offer to update the BPQ HTML pages to modern standards. This is primarily to make them fully responsive so that they display correctly on all screen sizes (phones, tablets, and desktops). I don't want to mess with the content of the pages, just the layout. Tasks would include:

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• Using a modern grid system instead of tables for layout.
• Moving the inline styles to a reusable stylesheet.
• Optimising how styling is applied to avoid repetition.
• Removing some JS which could be better handled by CSS.
• Adding some sensible caching headers, so CSS and JS doesn't have to be repeatedly downloaded.

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A few questions:

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1. Are you open to me doing this in the first place?
2. Is there a reason the files have a .txt extension instead of .html?
3. How is template data being processed? Do you have a custom renderer (probably related to #2)? Example, the %s: <h3 align="center">BPQ32 BBS %s</h3>
4. Does the program use a custom HTTP server or something standard?

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Further thoughts:

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• I'm familiar with git, so I would use git to track all my changes, which you could of course approve/refuse/discuss/modify along the way.
• Perhaps the templating part could use to pass in the strings and form values. It's very simple, but also very powerful.
• We could potentially have light/dark/user themes, and easily switch between them.
• If you are open to this, I would be happy to do one of the pages as a prototype to show how well this could work, before launching into the whole set of files.

Happy to hear any other feedback too.

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73 de Rik M7GMT

Hello,

To provide an example, I'm scanning both 20m and 40m during the day, and the same BPQ port for VARA applies. The default mode is BW500, and that's needed for the 40m frequency.

On 20m I could potentially use 2300. Is it possible to specify the VARA bandwidth in a connect script? If not, is there any recourse other than to use a different radio and VARA instance for 20 meters?

I suppose I could just change the default to 2300 and let it adapt to incoming connections that use 500, but there's the risk of an incoming connection on 2300 that could cause problems.

Any advice would be appreciated.

73,

Lee K5DAT

Never mind - I figured it out.? SIMPLE already included the NODE and HIDENODES settings and my configuration reversed them.? I guess HIDENODES hides the subject node as well :)

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Thanks for the suggestion.

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73 - Murray? VE3KNO

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