#462 Mixing on same view Hex and Chr

[Anonymous]

Hello,
I have just discovered the tool after spending a couple of hours on the web to evaluate the most known similar tools.

I found YAT extremely nice. I have been able to find some suitable configuration to fit my needs.

There is one feature missing that would be great to have :
It is currently possible to switch between Hex and Chr/Str easily but I would need to see both of them on the same screen.

I am using the terminal in binary mode to receive all control characters. I believe mixing on same view both Hex and Str might be more difficult to achieve but it should be more easy I guess to display on same screen Hex and Chr.

I believe it is fine if we can have both Hex and Chr on different panels if it is too much work to mix them on same panel but in that case, when a character is highlighted on one panel ( either Hex or Chr), it should be highlighted on the other panel as well.

I would say main use case is to easily spot not printable characters sent among/between strings. In some debug session, it is sometime interesting to check all these non printable characters among tons of text traces send over the serial port. So we usually look for a specific text string and then check the if some non printable character are sent . Most of the time, this is due to bugs in the serial driver that may output dummy non printable characters.

Regards.

[Maettu]

Hi,

This has been requested quite some time ago as FR #78 simultaneously displaying multiple radicies but hasn't made it up the priority so far, as it never got requested again.
difficult for some users to properly use it.

But YAT already offers alternatives:
I think very few users look for this feature, and I try to keep the YAT view as simple as possible. Already today there are quite a lot of options which in some cases make it

• You can color control characters differently, e.g. in pink: View > Format Settings...
• You can search the monitor content: Terminal > Find... or tool bar icon or Ctrl+F
• Already today, you can separatly configure the radix for control characters and "normal" characters: Terminal > Settings... > Advanced...
• With YAT 2.4.2, you will be able to...
  • also do this for binary terminals.
  • and for text terminals even be able to separately configure the radix for control and extended ASCII characters (SBCS encodings only), and even replace them by e.g. '?'.
• For DBCS/MBCS, if the encoding is properly configured, Terminal > Settings... > Text... > Behavior on decoding mismatch may show encoding issues as warning.

For the YAT 2.4.2 upcoming features, see e.g. https://sourceforge.net/p/y-a-terminal/discussion/settings/thread/c8ad6c0850/.

Please give these alternatives a try and let me know your findings. You may either reply here or send an email via the SourceForge mail feature (if you have a SourceForge account) or send an email to the address shown in YAT's Help > About... dialog.

Best regards,
Matthias

[Maettu]

Conclusion of email conversation:

• Text terminal with Show EOL should display the EOL control characters properly.
• Easier change of control char radix change requested => covered by FR #452 settings per predefined command

In addition some thoughts on displaying two radices in same monitor:

• Would technically be possible, e.g. every second line grey colored auxiliary with alternative radices.
  • Configuring the alternative radices will add quite some fuss to the settings dialog, as several settings will have to be duplicated.
• An alternative is described in FR #444 combined char/numeric.
  • Doesn't need separate line but rather shows everything on the same line.
  • Doesn't need all settings duplicated, just a single yes/no and an auxiliary radix.

[Maettu]

Dual line (colored/greyed out) is preferred by the user of the current discussion. However, single line (could also be aided by coloring) may be preferred in other cases. Consider to allow both.