feat(modem): APRS message-services picker on the Recipient field (#3569) by jensenpat · Pull Request #3828 · aethersdr/AetherSDR

jensenpat · 2026-06-26T02:30:19Z

What & why

Closes #3569. Adds an APRS message-services picker — a small ▾ caret button
next to the "To" field on the AetherModem APRS tab. It addresses the
well-known APRS gateway/auto-responder services without operators having to
memorize their callsigns and message-text syntax. These services already work
by manually typing the right destination + body; the picker just makes them one
tap away (the discoverability/usability win the issue asks for).

Selecting an entry:

sets the destination callsign in To,
seeds the message text with the correct command template and drops the
cursor right after the prefix, and
prints a one-line hint (what it does + the ~67-char limit) to the system log.

Services (grouped by category)

Category	To	Seeded body	Notes
SMS	`SMS`	`@`	NA7Q gateway, `@<10-digit#> <msg>`; replies return as APRS (SMSGTE is shut down)
Email	`EMAIL-2`	(empty)	`<email> <msg>`; register by sending your address once
Winlink	`WLNK-1`	`?`	APRSLink help / command list
Winlink	`WLNK-1`	`SMS`	one-line `SMS <email-or-call> <msg>`
Weather	`WXBOT`	(empty)	`City,ST` / `KICAO` / grid / blank = last position
Satellite / ISS	(unchanged)	(unchanged)	routing-only — shows an ARISS/RS0ISS path hint, does not touch To or the TX path

Per the maintainer triage on the issue, the ISS/satellite entry deliberately
does not mutate the To field or the TX PATH — changing the path is more
intrusive and easy to forget to revert — it only surfaces a hint.

Gateway note: the original issue specified SMSGTE, but that service has been
temporarily shut down over spam. The active global APRS↔SMS gateway is now NA7Q's,
addressed to SMS (same @<number> <message> body). Shipped with SMS.

Scope

All changes are local to Ax25HfPacketDecodeDialog (.cpp + .h); no
encoder/protocol change. The send path keeps not uppercasing the message
body (sendAprsMessageFromUi only uppercases the addressee), so case-sensitive
EMAIL-2 addresses and SMSGTE aliases survive intact — the service templates
rely on that.

How the agent automation bridge proved it

Built RelWithDebInfo, launched with AETHER_AUTOMATION=1, and drove the
picker entries by objectName (RX-only — no TX; MODEM stayed in Standby).
The bridge triggers each menu action and reads the resulting To / message
fields back via dumpTree. Before→after, all crash-free on one running
instance:

BEFORE        : ['', '']                  (To, message text)
SMS       ->   ['SMS', '@']
EMAIL-2   ->   ['EMAIL-2', '']
WLNK help ->   ['WLNK-1', '?']
WLNK sms  ->   ['WLNK-1', 'SMS ']
WXBOT     ->   ['WXBOT', '']

ISS routing-only no-clobber:
  before ISS = ['WLNK-1', 'SMS ']
  after  ISS = ['WLNK-1', 'SMS ']   UNCHANGED = True

Hints reached the system log (lcAx25), e.g.:
WLNK-1 APRSLink: send "?" for the command list (L, R#, SP, SMS, …) and
ISS/ARISS digi (145.825 MHz): set TX PATH to "ARISS" (RS0ISS)….

Screenshot of the new ▾ picker in the APRS MESSAGE row (fields seeded from
the bridge; MODEM Standby):

Agent automation bridge — two gaps found (and worked around)

Dogfooding the bridge surfaced two real issues; the feature is shipped to dodge
both, and they're worth fixing in the bridge so the next feature doesn't have to:

TX-guard deny-word cwx is an unanchored substring match. The guard
flagged a weather (RX-only) menu entry as transmit-keying because the
abbreviated objectName aprsSvcWXBOT.toLower() = aprssvcwxbot
contains the trigram cwx (the c from svc + wx from wxbot).
Workaround: objectNames use the spelled-out aprsService… prefix.
Proposed fix: anchor the cwx/mox/ptt/transmit deny-words to word
boundaries (or require an explicit TX marker) instead of bare contains().
The bridge can't safely open a QToolButton popup menu on macOS. A
programmatic click() runs synchronously inside the socket-read callback;
showing the menu's native popup window from there re-enters the Cocoa GUI
stack and segfaults intermittently (QMenu::popup → QCocoaWindow::setVisible → QWindow::geometry). Deferring the popup with singleShot(0) did not help
— showing the native window is the hazard, not the call site.
Workaround: ship pure InstantPopup (human press uses Qt's built-in path)
with no synthetic-click affordance; the bridge still verifies seeding by
triggering the menu actions while the menu is closed
(triggerMenuAction then skips the popup path and just calls
action->trigger() — crash-free, which is exactly how the proof above runs).
Proposed fix: an openMenu/showMenu verb for button popups that posts
the show onto the GUI event loop, and/or defer widget click() like QAction
triggers are already deferred.

💻 Generated with Claude Code (Opus 4.8) with architecture by @jensenpat

…rsdr#3569) Add a small ▾ caret button next to the APRS "To" field that addresses the well-known APRS gateway services without operators having to memorize their callsigns and message-text syntax. Selecting an entry sets the destination callsign, seeds the message text with the correct command template (cursor after the prefix), and prints a one-line hint with the per-service ~67-char limit to the system log. Services (grouped by category in the menu): - SMS — SMSGTE ("@<10-digit#> <msg>") - Email — EMAIL-2 ("<email> <msg>") - Winlink — WLNK-1 help ("?") and one-line email/SMS ("SMS <to> <msg>") - Weather — WXBOT ("City,ST" / "KICAO" / grid / blank) - Satellite/ISS — routing-only: shows an ARISS/RS0ISS path hint, does NOT mutate the To field or the TX path (less surprising to undo, per the issue's path-coupling note) All changes are local to Ax25HfPacketDecodeDialog; no encoder/protocol change. The send path keeps NOT uppercasing the body, so case-sensitive EMAIL-2 addresses and SMSGTE aliases survive intact. Closes aethersdr#3569.

…thersdr#3569) The original SMSGTE service has been temporarily shut down over spam, and the current global APRS↔SMS gateway is NA7Q's, addressed to "SMS" (body format is unchanged: "@<number> <message>"; aliases via "#alias #add <name> <number>"). This is exactly the "confirm current callsigns/SSIDs at ship time" check the issue called for. Bridge-verified: empty → To=SMS / text=@, crash-free.

aethersdr-agent

Thanks for this, @jensenpat — nicely scoped (two files, no protocol/encoder changes), the routing-only ISS handling and the "don't uppercase the body" reasoning are well thought through, and the comments documenting the aprsService… objectName choice and the InstantPopup/bridge tradeoff are genuinely helpful for the next reader. One real bug though:

`QString::fromLatin1` on UTF-8 literals → mojibake (blocking)

The kAprsServices table fields are const char* literals in a UTF-8 source file, but they're decoded with QString::fromLatin1, which maps each byte 1:1 onto U+0000–00FF. Any multi-byte UTF-8 character will therefore render as garbage:

Every menu label uses an em dash — (U+2014, UTF-8 E2 80 94) — e.g. "SMS — text an SMS to a phone". Via fromLatin1 this displays as SMS â€" text an SMS to a phone in the dropdown.
Hints contain → (ICAO→METAR), ≤ and ° (≤~60 chars, passes >30°), which corrupt in both the tooltip and the appendSystemLine system-log output.

QAction* act = serviceMenu->addAction(QString::fromLatin1(e.label));
act->setToolTip(QString::fromLatin1(e.hint));
...
const QString hint = QString::fromLatin1(e.hint);

Fix: use QString::fromUtf8 for label, section, and hint (the addressee/body fields are pure ASCII so they're unaffected, but switching them too keeps it uniform).

Worth noting this is exactly the class of bug the bridge proof couldn't catch: the verification triggers actions by objectName and reads back the To/message fields (all ASCII), so the corrupted label and hint text never showed up in the before→after dumps.

Otherwise looks good

Menu ownership is correct — serviceMenu is parented to msgFrame and QToolButton::setMenu doesn't take ownership, so no leak/double-free.
seedAprsService null-safety is fine (members are built before the menu can be triggered), the routing-only early-out correctly avoids clobbering an in-progress compose, and setCursorPosition(body.length()) is safe for the empty-body entries.
appendSystemLine already guards against a null m_log.

Just the encoding fix and this is good to go.

_{🤖 aethersdr-agent · cost: $4.3274 · model: claude-opus-4-8}

ten9876

Clean, correct, low-risk APRS convenience feature. Verified the two correctness-critical items: seedAprsService gates all field mutation on if (!addressee.isEmpty()), so the ISS routing-only entry leaves To/message untouched (matching the maintainer triage); and it does a plain setText(body) with no uppercasing, so case-sensitive EMAIL-2/templates survive (the send path only uppercases the addressee). Good details — cursor lands after the seeded prefix, no TX surface (seeds + logs a hint, never sends), and the pure-InstantPopup with no synthetic-click affordance deliberately avoids the macOS Cocoa re-entrancy segfault while menu objectNames let the bridge verify seeding via closed-menu trigger. The bridge gaps it surfaced (unanchored cwx deny-word, QToolButton popup driving) are real and being consolidated into a follow-up. Thanks @jensenpat.

jensenpat changed the title ~~feat(gui): APRS message-services picker on the Recipient field (#3569)~~ feat(modem): APRS message-services picker on the Recipient field (#3569) Jun 26, 2026

jensenpat marked this pull request as ready for review June 26, 2026 03:11

jensenpat requested a review from a team as a code owner June 26, 2026 03:11

aethersdr-agent Bot reviewed Jun 26, 2026

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aethersdr-agent Bot mentioned this pull request Jun 26, 2026

feat(automation): observability fields + close/drag/showMenu/pan verbs, grab pan, token-anchored TX guard (#3646) #3842

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ten9876 approved these changes Jun 26, 2026

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ten9876 merged commit 2b8b775 into aethersdr:main Jun 26, 2026
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ten9876 mentioned this pull request Jun 26, 2026

Automation bridge Phase-3: remaining drivability/observability gaps (deny-word anchoring, popup/drag verbs, Quindar + overlay snapshots) #3845

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feat(modem): APRS message-services picker on the Recipient field (#3569)#3828

feat(modem): APRS message-services picker on the Recipient field (#3569)#3828
ten9876 merged 2 commits into
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jensenpat:fix/3569-aprs-services

jensenpat commented Jun 26, 2026 •

edited

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jensenpat commented Jun 26, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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What & why

Services (grouped by category)

Scope

How the agent automation bridge proved it

Agent automation bridge — two gaps found (and worked around)

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QString::fromLatin1 on UTF-8 literals → mojibake (blocking)

Otherwise looks good

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jensenpat commented Jun 26, 2026 •

edited

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`QString::fromLatin1` on UTF-8 literals → mojibake (blocking)