- Channels Tab - Export/Import is buggy, All zones loose all their channels after re-importing what you just exported.

[David5466]

Hey Joel,

We have finally been playing with your latest JPS following DT's instructions

I notice when you do an export, save the file, then import the csv file straight back in.

(It does ask you if you would like to overwrite and replace, and I chose yes to replace.)

Then, when I check the Zone Tab
All the zones have suddenly lost all their channels, and become empty.

It seems to be just a cps bug only.

We can explain more if you like.

Thanks.

[David5466]

An interesting Story happened to me tonight,

I brought another 4D radio over to the new JPS, I didn't realize I still had the no zones codeplug in the jps, from doing DopplerBob's export/import tests, and I did a write to that new radio from that codeplug, and boom there went ALL my zones !!!!

All the radio wanted to do after that was to be in CHANNEL mode or VFO mode, I was panicking, like what the hell !!!
So I flashed a good codeplugs "zones only" back onto the radio, and the Radio is ALIVE again !!!!!

This did not help Dopplerbob's issue, and I think putting zone number in channels tab, would be very useful for people who like to do mass channel edits in excel, and get everything perfect, lots of channel numbers get changed, so if the zones were in the JPS channels tab, and then also in the exported CSV file, that channel number order, could be edited and yet still stay consistent within the zones after reimporting.

I found out only one person we know that has done this, Marcus. He called them "Groups" on his fw for analogue radios.
I didn't know it had been done before.

[dopplerbob]

Joel, For example, Marcus's FW for the RT-880 uses this concept where there is a tab in the Channel area where you can assign the Zone (group in his) . This way when you export the CSV, the channels stay with the zones they were assigned to regardless of the order you put the channels in inside the CSV.

[David5466]

I'm not sure if this could mean a big change for DT fw as well, because DT said he only has 2 bytes of space left on the FW, so there is only enough space left for the most awesome of things or a whole lot of useful bug fixes, so I understand if either of you cant do it, or even any time soon.

But if it is even possible, it would make it so easy for people that want to do mass edit/deletes/add of all their 4D channels
People could reorder their jumbled mess of channels into a work of ocd art using excel.

[DualTachyon]

The 2 bytes comments was for channel data, not the firmware. my firmware only occupies 50-55% of the available internal flash.

A big problem for Joel in my opinion, is that a channel could be in 256 zones, since there is a max of 256 zones and that would be ugly in design and code. Not hard or anything, but it is the type of thing that is annoying to manage with handling data. And if you suggest a max zone number, someone could come here and say "hey, but i Need 2x that amount!" and it becomes a never ending story. Your screenshot only shows 4 slots, that sounds easy to do.

But on the 4D, a channel does not have a zone or scan list information. it only knows if it should be scanned or not (in the official Radtel way). zones know which channels they own, not the reverse. Maybe export CSV could include zone information as separate lines (e.g. line 1 to 1024 = channels, 1025 to 1280 = zone list that points to 1..1024, but this could also be a lot of work/hassle for Joel.

[jcalado]

Perhaps exporting zones after the channels on the same CSV is a good solution for now! Thanks DT.