Made some field tests with Polo this week for SOTA- and POTA activations and was satisfied with the onsite experience.
The entry boxes on a smartphone screen are quite small. Correcting incorrect entries becomes a challenge when the next chasers are already calling. When I tap a field, the cursor is somewhere in the field and I have to type the backspace key once or several times - and this key is also tiny. I missed especially a one-key-possibility to quickly delete the complete wrong entry of a field like a report or the callsign, to restart then the full entry of the correct value.
I suggest a behavior like:
tap once an input field: the cursor enters this field and jumps to the end of the current value;
double-tap an input field: the content of that field is deleted, the cursor remains in this field and I can enter the complete new/correct value.
I was confirmed by others that coping with typo corrections during the activation on the small smartphone keyboard triggers can trigger stress. Especially then when additional problems arise like a dirty screen or sunshine on the screen.
Thanks in advance for considering a good “hands-on” solution for this.
Yes, but that is not my topic. My glasses are good enough to read even small sized fonts, hi. Bigger fonts have other/new disadvantages on such a small screen like the cellular screen.
My topic is to reduce the finger taps / operation steps needed to apply corrections to erroneous entries. One wish is to have a standard behavior when you tap once into an already filled box, the other is to have a one-step manipulation to make an already filled box empty. My proposal is that the existing content of that box is in the edit mode and the cursor is at the end of that entry after a single tap on that box respectively a double tap for deleting its content and make it ready for a completely new entry.
This to make onsite live corrections faster when the next contact is already speaking.
Markus,
PoLo is developed in React-Native. It’s an environment which allows development in one base code language but compiles into code which runs on 2 quite different platforms (iOS/Android).
There are significant benefits and there are also some drawbacks,
React-Native needs constant updates which can ‘break’ certain previous actions. And some of the subtleties of working directly in only one the the base codes are not surfaced for the developer to use or get access to. Actions need to be common to both or have easily re-interpreted alternatives to use on both from the one code base.
I say all this because often really fine subtle actions to which you are referring do do not always offer themselves due to a lack of commonality between the endpoint actions.
Both environments do have a long press action which brings up a magnifier view and allows you to roll over the edit box to move the cursor more definitively. This and in some cases, larger fonts size makes this task/action a little easier.
And I am sure @KI2D Sebastian will read this and keep the idea in mind.
Alan
Maybe another complementary approach might be helpful: What is an established best practice to correct efficiently in my “stressing” onsite situation described above to handle this best on my iPhone?
I’m experienced with VK port-a-log so far. There, I had the possibility to toggle Y/N in the settings that a tap onto a dedicated input field makes that field empty and clean to re-enter a new value.
And additionally: Is there a dedicated one-tap action in Polo to empty all entries for the running QSO so far, resp. what is the best practice for doing so?
I’m afraid there is no definitive “best practice” for these things that I know of.
I too use vk-port-a-log and although I find some things uncomfortable to use, I persevere.
I tend toward using these apps in a way which produces the least personal stress. Sometimes that is also not the way I would really love it to be.
I do, however, enjoy my activations a lot more with PoLo because it does a lot more of what I want and like, and reduces my post activation workflow considerably.
I can confirm your experience. I enjoyed to use Polo this week since there is really good and modern multi-program support and handling benefit from it. I was using VK port-a-log on a separate Android mini tablet from 2016 (!) but I can think of retire this device soon and replace its weight by a mini power block for my cellular.
Thinking of “take it or leave it”, I will keep Polo active. I’ll gain more practice on this correction topic here. If there are good future assists from the software or from “best practice” collections I will certainly like to take profit even in the future.
Btw, is there a simple way to discard all entries for a not yet saved last QSO (i.e. before hitting the “save” button) and “blank” the input fields incl. S2S P2P etc. tags?
When you tap a spot to prefill all details (similar to vk-port-a-log), or just fill in details in preparation for saving the QSO, you may revert all fields to blank and return to your calling frequency by tapping the back button here:
— yesss!