Possible colour blind mode for FT8 text log?

[andylsun]

I'm red/green colour blind and ended up modifying the font_table in sbitx_gtk.c so I could see my call sign stand out in the list. With the default colour scheme I can't pick out my call sign in the log at all, it just blends in with all the other green call signs. Edit: I didn't realize MYCALL was set to a different colour until I made this change...

{FONT_FT8_TX, 0.3, 0.3, 1, "Mono", 11, CAIRO_FONT_WEIGHT_NORMAL, CAIRO_FONT_SLANT_NORMAL},
{FF_MYCALL, 0.6, 0.6, 1, "Mono", 11, CAIRO_FONT_WEIGHT_NORMAL, CAIRO_FONT_SLANT_NORMAL},

This gives a purple colour to MYCALL and a blue for FT8_TX which stands out much better in the wall of red/green currently in the FT8 display.

Would we be able to have an optional second font_table that can be configured either via a CLI switch or a setting. I didn't want to try to hack in the code and make a messy change.

thanks

Andy - KC1WCH

[drexjj]

We are looking into a way to move these values into an external, configurable file that can be adjusted by anyone without recompiling the software.

[drexjj]

I added a feature that will do this and is available in the next release. You can test it now on my style branch

[andylsun]

Awesome. It can load different styles at run time? I couldn't see how to pick a style type. CLI option?

[andylsun]

I set up a user_style.tpl with MYCALL colour changes and it works great thanks!

[andylsun]

It stopped printing country/distance/bearing in the style branch... main 5.301 branch prints those

[drexjj]

What template did you modify and how? I can confirm this works with templates. Additional fonts may need to be loaded or sized accordingly.

FWIW for our other viewers - this is on dev and not mainstream yet. There will be bugs and operational issues to sort.

[andylsun]

I created a new sub directory and cloned the styles branch to it

mkdir sbitx-styles
cd sbitx-styles/
git clone https://github.com/drexjj/sbitx.git --branch styles

I built the new binary in ~/sbitx-styles and then when I ran it I realized it was still using ~/sbitx/data as a hardcoded location.

I copied some tpl files to ~/sbitx/data

cp vintage_amber_style.tpl ~/sbitx/data/user_style.tpl

Tested, looked sick...

cp default_style.tpl ~/sbitx/data/user_style.tpl

then edited user_style.tpl (based on default_style.tpl) to add my MYCALL colour change.

then noticed that countries etc were missing.

So there's only ONE tpl file in ~/sbitx/data, not all of them. Perhaps it needs to be all of them?

[andylsun]

found the issue for lack of distances etc.

didn't find /home/pi/sbitx-styles/sbitx/data/cty.dat

So cty.dat uses a data file based on where the binary is located, but syle templates are hard codec to ~/sbitx/data ?

also update-cty.sh appears to check in ~/sbitx/data even if it's launched from ~/sbits-styles

pi@sbitx:~/sbitx-styles/sbitx $ ./update-cty.sh
no cty.dat update: already checked today (2026-02-17)

So I think it's me launching the styles binary from a non-default location (~/sbitx-styles/sbitx) causing issues.

[drexjj]

@andylsun I fixed the templates so now you can make the change you want and it should work. Just note of caution - don't change the font type from Mono to something else in

[font:STYLE_LOG]
index=0
family=Mono
size=13
color=0.70, 0.85, 1.00
weight=normal
slant=normal

Because it doesn't play nice with the system. The other fonts, colors, settings, sizes, etc are ok to modify.

[andylsun]

I'll pull the update thanks.

[andylsun]

tested with user_styles and it worked perfectly. thanks!