The question mark icon is for stations with unknown positions. A station that sends a status message, telemetry, or positionless weather report first (as far as your station newly listening is concerned) means that YAAC doesn't know where to plot it or what its symbol is. So YAAC guesses the station's location by assuming it's near its first digipeater (assuming the digipeater's position report has been heard). This feature is called "vicinity plotting".
Once YAAC hears an actual position report with an APRS symbol code from the station, it will change the icon and move it to the correct location on the map.
While the station's actual position is not known, and either it wasn't digipeated and heard by an I-Gate whose position isn't known, or digipeated by a digipeater whose position isn't known, the position remains at latitude/longitude (0,0). The button on the map toolbar with a big 0 on it will jump the map to that location.
Note that, if you don't like it, you can turn vicinity plotting off in the expert-mode configuration dialog.
Hope this helps.
Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

-------- Original message --------
From: Michael WA7SKG <wa7skg@...>
Date: 1/4/20 15:36 (GMT-05:00)
To: [email protected]
Subject: [yaac-users] Strange Position Reports
I see periodic objects show up with the icon of a gray circle with a red
question mark. They are many miles from their actual location. Clicking
on the icon gives me a box of either seemingly garbage characters or
just a blank in the comments field. Many of these are fixed sites, so I
know the location is not correct. Some are mobile, but when I talk to
them later, they were never in the area.
What's up with that?
Michael WA7SKG

Andrew...

I did a restart and didn't see anything in the startup messages or the
syslog related to an exception. I really don't see any errors. It's just
as if the web server isn't being enabled.

Frankly, I didn't think status would be changing that rapidly when I designed the UI. The events I was working, I would be "En Route" going to the event, "In Service" the whole time I was there, and "Returning" when going home afterwards. On the other hand, I was generally stationed at a fixed location rather than being a mobile unit for such events.
But this is certainly something changeable. I was looking at some similar easy status change control idea when I was thinking about putting a telemetry system in my RV (a side-project that, alas, still hasn't come to fruition, partly due to the same low-res UI design issue).
Michael, do you have a keyboard on your mobile setup? There's only so much room on a low-res screen (especially if it's a touch screen) for more controls. But I could take advantage of the PC function keys for easy switching. Alas, neither of the two Bluetooth keyboards I acquired for experiments for the RV telemetry system had an extra row for the Fn keys, so you would have to hold down two keys to be the equivalent of an Fn function key on an PC104 keyboard. And no better to do Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, etc., for such switching.
Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC
________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Eric H. Christensen via Groups.Io <eric@...>
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2019 4:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] Station Status
This is an interesting idea. To me, the MicE status has always been a useless piece of information *because* it was too difficult to change the status and most (all but DOS APRS?) clients don't really show the MicE status.
It would be interesting to have a mobile GUI that would have these buttons (when MicE is enabled?) across the top to make it easy to select. It could be useful during events and such. I suspect this could be a complete redesign of the GUI, though.
73,
Eric WG3K

Let's get this thread back on the correct subject line.
Michael, please describe the hardware and O/S platform that you are using. What O/S (Windows, Linux, etc.) are you running? What is the screen size in pixels? Is it a touch screen? I need a few more details if I'm going to be able to help.
Regarding displaying current Mic-E status on the map, it can be done by selecting View->View Map Layers...->View Mic-E Status. That will put a colored circle around each station reporting Mic-E status (no circles around stations not reporting Mic-E status). Solid-line circles for standard Mic-E status codes, dashed-line circles for custom codes. The colors corresponding to statuses are documented in the online help; look up Mic-E in the help index. Note this is different from the filled-in circles behind station icons that report APRSdos-style item status (emergency, mobile or fixed, your objects or someone else's, or just plain old and probably out-of-date).The status is also printed as text if you click on a station icon with the mouse on the map; the popup box includes all the current information about that station, including its Mic-E status.
Hope this helps.
Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC
________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Michael WA7SKG <wa7skg@...>
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2019 4:19 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] Message box
For my desired purpose, I am using equipment dedicated to the
purpose, in place and in use all the time. The goal is to provide
position and status reporting in real time, as well as to send and
receive short messages. I would also be interested in seeing other
stations in my vicinity. When I originally brought this up on various
forums, the overwhelming reply was to use YAAC for the purpose, even
after explaining my equipment configuration.
At this time, a larger, higher resolution screen is not an option for
me. Granted, I may have to consider that option in the future, but it
would require a significant restructuring of my installation. To arrive
at a location and need to change my status a bunch of times per day, I
don't have time to connect a laptop in the vehicle, fire it up, launch
programs, run through menus and make a status update.
If there is a non-graphical client for APRS that will provide the
information I need and able to quickly update status and message
information, and run on my existing hardware, that would be fine. As of
now, I have yet to find such software.

Also wanted to say that Andrew is doing a great job meeting the various
constituencies within amateur radio with YAAC and many kudos to him for
doing this and also for free!
Bob AB2NE

Hmm,? maybe I'm missing the point too - of WA7SKG's complaint.? I have been using APRS or nearly
20 years, fixed station and mobile.? Most of the time mobile I have been satisfied with the
non-graphic display of a Kenwood D700/710.? When I needed a full graphic display of APRS-FI,
UI-View or YAAC it wasn't a big deal to use my iPad or connect a laptop.? No doubt? a format
suitable for a 7" display connected to an RPi would be useful but APRS has been useful without
it for a long time.? If Andrew can come up with a suitable layout for use with YAAC that would
be great but it is more important to get it right than? to? just get it released.
Bob? G0BUX/W0BUX
On 2019-12-28 17:07, Andrew P. wrote:

Let me clarify.

YAAC's screens were designed for a conventional laptop PC, with
minimally 1024x768 pixels to work with. They weren't designed for
low-resolution screens, because it's too hard to draw a usable map
with limited pixels. So the screen layout assumed that there would be
enough width to display all the messaging controls at the bottom of
the map window.

The menu choice Message->Station provides the same functionality in a
popup dialog window, but has the fields in different lines, so it may
not require as much screen width.

I have been contemplating an alternate screen for low-res mobile
operations (such as the 7" touchscreen for Raspberry Pi), but haven't
come up with a layout I like yet that will fit in such a tiny space
and still be operable with fat fingers on a touchscreen.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC
________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of
Christopher Rose <kb8uih88@...>
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2019 11:13 AM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] Message box

Michael, Andrew said menu choices will get you where you want to go
on your smaller screen. Then you say too bad? Did I misunderstand this
exchange?

Chris


-----------------------------------------

From: "Michael WA7SKG"
To: "Andrew P.", "[email protected]"
Cc:
Sent: Saturday December 28 2019 6:05:11AM
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] Message box

That is too bad. Perhaps I am misinformed or have misunderstood, but I
thought the whole purpose of APRS was to cater to the mobile user to
provide a quick and easy method of reporting position, status, and brief
messages. Mobile operation, by its nature, necessitates smaller screens
and demands minimal operator actions to accomplish a task. The system
should be driven to meet that situation, rather than make it more
difficult for the primary purpose.

Maybe I am missing the point of APRS. Perhaps further investigation is
in order.

Michael WA7SKG


Andrew P. wrote on 12/27/19 6:24 PM:

It's because your window is too small. The rightmost controls in the
footer are being drawn off-screen because they don't fit in the allowed
window space.

There are menu choices to get you the same functionality in a smaller
window.



Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone


-------- Original message --------
From: Michael WA7SKG <wa7skg@...>
Date: 12/27/19 20:16 (GMT-05:00)
To: [email protected]
Subject: [yaac-users] Message box

Another question. On my base configuration, at the bottom of the screen,
there are three boxes, TO, VIA, and Message, followed by a SEND button.
I can put in a callsign, a path, and some text, hit send and it goes to
that station. However, on my just configured mobile, only the TO and VIA
boxes are visible. The TEXT box and the SEND button are missing.

Is this a configuration issue? Or because I am using a much smaller
screen (22" on base, 7" on mobile)?

Thanks,
Michael WA7SKG