vfo_t (Was: Re: [Hamlib-developer] branch_ts2k)

[Nate B. <n0...@ne...>]

Hmmm.

I've been using the RIG_VFO_x macros, but I'm still dense on the
intention.  I wonder if my confusion is with the documentation in rig.h
where a diagram of a byte is shown, but the text uses the term byte
where I suspect bit was meant.

* Stephane Fillod <f8...@fr...> [2003 Mar 03 17:08 -0600]:
 
>   My goal is to kill the band field in vfo_t. To do this, a new field
>   in rig_caps will be created to describe each VFO#, and if it is
>   exclusive with another VFO.
>   Anything else would be done using other API calls (split, weird
>   channel setup), maybe creating new ones.

I'm not opposed to this.  I don't understand the current system, so I'll
try to make sense of any new effort.

> * Anything that's not a VFO is something else, most probably a kind of
>   memory channel. Memory channel numbers can be forged, using negative
>   value for instance.

At the moment the FT-920 has both VFO-A/B.  Unfortunately, it's not a
true dual VFO radio even though it has a sub display similar to other
dual display rigs.  Thus I added some support for RIG_VFO_MAIN/SUB where
it made sense to me.

So it would be handy to return a set of flags that indicate VFO/MEM/MEM
TUNE and SUB/MAIN (by simple definition VFO A = MAIN and VFO B = SUB) to
rig_get_vfo.  Perhaps an unsigned int with the MSB (0x03) could be the
flags byte and the lower three bytes could be used by the backend to 
number the available VFOs.

On the other hand, Dale's idea of making it into a structure may be more
versatile in the long run.  New capability could be added to the struct
as the need arises and this might not break old backends too badly.

>   Please, everyone, comment heavily on this vfo_t design. I'll try to come
>   up with a real patch this week. The vfo_t redesign is the only thing
>   holding me to release hamlib-1.1.4.

Well, there's my short comment.

73, de Nate >>

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