Label printing or API Support for querying QSOs?

[gx1400]

I have been looking for a clean way to print QSO address labels for mailing out QSL cards without downloading an ADIF and opening another log software with built in label printing.

I'd love to be able to write a script to query QSOs with a set of filters in JSON (in this case "QSL Sent" == Queued) so I could parse through the results to write a label script directly from the API.

is this capability available? does anyone have a better solution for label printing?

[elitegoodguy]

I dug through the help and found a label printing addon that hasn't been touched in 6 years and used that as a base to write my own. Mine uses a clean font and a really good ASCII table to output a PDF ready for printing.

Since I'm mobile and want to use this for QSL cards I have it adding on My Grid and My County for those made outside of the house. I also want to work counties mobile so I might have multiple QSOs for multiple counties on 1 label which mine supports.

Literally just today I added on pagination feature to split those labels with more than 7 (or any number specified) into multiple labels.

If the devs are interested I'll do some cleanup of it and do a Pull Request.

[gx1400]

Your solution sounds like an improvement for sure. I stumbled upon magicbugs label project but I didnt want to touch the sqlite database directly or deviate the cloudlog install away from master

[AndreasK79]

@elitegoodguy did you integrate it into Cloudlog, or is it standalone, but uses the database?

@magicbug did start on a branch here a few years back: https://github.com/magicbug/Cloudlog/tree/QSLLabelPrinting

[elitegoodguy]

Mine is standalone I used this repo as a base. https://github.com/magicbug/cloudlog-labels

I wanted a nicer looking table so I switched to tfpdf since it supports Unicode characters and used a Unicode table found here: https://github.com/malios/php-to-ascii-table.

During this process I learned that I needed to change the fonts to a monospace Unicode font like DejaVuSansMono.

I also wanted them combined to multiple QSOs per label instead of 1 per label which puts a limit to what will fit on a label so I added in pagination to split labels with more than 7 QSOs into a separate label. Today I'll do some clean up, fork his and upload to my fork of it.

[AndreasK79]

That is very interesting indeed. Please let me know when you have updated your fork.

Perhaps I could integrate this into Cloudlog based on your works.

[elitegoodguy]

@AndreasK79 - Uploaded

https://github.com/elitegoodguy/cloudlog-labels

[AndreasK79]

@elitegoodguy thank you. I appreciate it. I'll take a look and see if I can do something with it.

[AndreasK79]

A little teaser:

[elitegoodguy]

A little teaser:

That's awesome looking forward to seeing it in action

[gx1400]

Id love to be able to print address labels, whether in line or separately.

I generally send SASEs, so I print 1 QSO label and two address labels for the receiver (one for the SASE top left corner and one for my outgoing envelope).

Personally I use a self inked stamp for my home address but an option to print 1-2 of my address labels cleanly would be appreciated.

[gx1400]

Also probably way out of scope, but I was impressed by how Log4OM2 allows you to specify bureau or manager for the shipping label

[elitegoodguy]

This is a great start and exactly what I had in mind. When I modified it I just put in the minimum that I needed. Thought it would be good in the future to expand and allow selections of Different labels, and different fields.

[AndreasK79]

Id love to be able to print address labels, whether in line or separately.

Yeah, I can see that this is a nice to have feature. The question is where to put it.
I see we have a column in the logbook table for the address (col_address and col_address_intl). These are only filled via ADIF import, so they are never exposed in the user interface. That means we have no way of using the address now.

1. We need to add so that the address column can be filled/edited.
2. We need to have the full name stored for the QSO partner. We have options to pull full name from QRZ/hamqth.
3. We need to be able to specify label settings (size, font, font size etc). Basically the same thing as for QSO label.
4. And from where should we print it? I would imagine that printing for all QSOs waiting in queue for label print is not the way to go. I guess this can be done from QSLprint menu instead.

So you see that this becomes much more than just an address label.

If someone would make it, they are welcome to do so, but I am not sure that it is something I'll spend my time on.

[AndreasK79]

@gx1400 QRZ has a label button. That might do the trick for you.

[AndreasK79]

Another screenshot:

[AndreasK79]

Example label with DejaVuSans mono spaced font:

[AndreasK79]

I did not implement the unicode table. I might in the future. It was enough work just getting everything to work through Cloudlog.

Also I could never get the table to look as good as your screenshot. When I generated labels, the table line border was not one connected line. It had spacing between the lines.

Changing text according to QSL received or not, is a good idea. I'll have that in mind. I am not finished with labels yet.

[elitegoodguy]

Yeah I noticed that when the border was all over the place shifted to left and right I needed to use a monospace font. That fixed that.

For the space inbetween. When it appears to have a break however when I zoom in there's no break there. It was a graphical glitch on my PDF end.

This is great though, thanks for all your hard work getting this implemented!

This is why I like open source projects like this.

I have more ideas on improvements to various features and might actually learn how to implement it within the application and submit a PR myself.

[AndreasK79]

For space inbetween. When it appears to have a break however when I zoom in there's no break there. It was a graphical glitch on my PDF end.

I will take another look.

I have more ideas on improvements to various features and might actually learn how to implement it within the application and submit a PR myself.

Feel free to ask for any help. It might look confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it will become easier.

You can also start a discussion with features you think about, and we could give you some suggestions.

[AndreasK79]

@elitegoodguy when I try the unicode labels, I still have space when zooming in:

[elitegoodguy]

@elitegoodguy when I try the unicode labels, I still have space when zooming in:

Huh that is odd yours are legit spaces mine would be a space along 1 edge randomly here and there.

Made a good call to just ditch it till we can get the Unicode tables figured out. I'll see if I can try to reproduce what you're seeing.

[AndreasK79]

Labels are now merged into the dev branch for those that would like to try it out.

[magicbug]

Need todo a print run 200+ waiting in my outgoing so will give it a shot this evening.

Couple of things

• Method to mark them all as sent for each location
• Option to print them by DXCC to save having to sort them (I'm lazy)

[AndreasK79]

All good suggestions. I did have the first one in mind, just not sure in what way it should be done. I had a thought about adding another button with "Print and mark as sent". Suggestions?

Sorting is time consuming, so presort helps out. I'll figure something out.

[magicbug]

Perhaps a "Printed, Make as sent" button?

Yeah sorting is always the part that I try to avoid but has to be done, RSGB likes it by DXCC not sure about other bureaus.

[magicbug]

Guess other option when clicking print, on the main page have a modal box popup asking if it was printed successfully and do you want them marked as sent

[gx1400]

I need to stand up a local copy of cloudlog so I can play with dev branch. I'm not sure how the label printing process is currently kicked off.

For QSO management I generally use the "Logbook -> Advanced" interface.

My process:

1. Add QSO to log while operating (manually or automatically like with WSJT-X)
2. Some time later I come in and walk through QRZ.com pages and look for whether other operators mail QSL cards (whether in the text of their profile, or on the QRZ Profile -> Details tab
3. a) For operators who do NOT mail QSL cards, I click the checkmark (or multiple checkmarks) and then click the yellow "QSL Not Required" button to change their QSL Sent status.
   b) For operators who do QSL cards, I click the checkmark (or multiple checkmark) and click the blue "Queue Direct" button to change the QSL Sent status to Queued.
4. Sometime later when I want to bulk process cards to go out, I filter by "QSL Sent = Queued" and "DXCC = K (United States)". This should give me a list of people I want to mail to domestically

My thought is that I would check the checkboxes of whom I want send cards to, then click a new "Print Labels" button to generate a labels

My process specifically: I don't want to automatically mark QSOs as Sent until I have labeled, stamped, and sealed my envelopes. I don't mark 'Sent Direct' until I verify they are ready to send.

As I receive QSL cards back, I take pictures of their cards, upload to the QSL, then mark the 'QSL Received'

[magicbug]

Please try the dev branch to give feedback on the feature.

[magicbug]

While i'm dumping thoughts, it would be a nice to have so that you can say printed page 1-5 but missed page 6 as it wasn't a full page of labels.

[magicbug]

Just configured my setup with code 905041 labels and printed off 6 pages of labels and stuck them to qsl cards ready for the bureau!

@AndreasK79 seems to be working great, just need the mark as sent option 👍🏻

[AndreasK79]

@magicbug good to hear that it worked. For now, you can use the "Mark as sent" under QSLprint. I will look into marking option later.

[magicbug]

I'm not sure how i missed that

[m0urs]

I never used this label printing before and I just wanted to try it out (after updating to the latest DEV). Unfortunately I get an error, as soon as I press the "Print" button.

It tries to open that URL

https://cloudlog.urspringer.de/labels/print/1

and gets an Error 500 back !?

[AndreasK79]

And by default, I mean click on "Use for print".

[m0urs]

Yes, for sure you need to really open your eyes before testing, which is hard in the morning. Yes, it works now :-) Sorry for that.

[AndreasK79]

No problem. That is why it's great to have testers. A check needs to be added :)

[AndreasK79]

Code adjusted. Now gives error.

[m0urs]

Yes, that works :-)

[magicbug]

Not sure how easy it would be but having the callsign bold would be nice

[AndreasK79]

No easy fix discovered as of now.

[magicbug]

Yeah I had a little look yesterday evening and couldn't come up with anything, but will poke some more :-) just about to print off labels for GB2KDR QSOs from this weekend 👍🏻

[int2001]

Prettified the labels - have a look at the latest dev

[magicbug]

I've a few suggestions based on my label outputs

• Dont think UTC needs to be stated its the common format in the hobby.
• Ability to shorten the date its taking a lot of label room.

doc.pdf

[magicbug]

I'd still love to make the callsign bigger and bold but I know thats not possible it seems

[int2001]

Actually the "UTC" takes no extra-space. But you're right. It's common, so i'll fix that.
What do you mean by "shorten" the Date?

This one: "23-07-28 11:10" instead of "2023-07-28 11:10"?

Callisign bigger: Yes i'd like that too. But with the current libs not possible. We tried several other libs, but they're all bloated as hell

[magicbug]

This one: "23-07-28 11:10" instead of "2023-07-28 11:10"?

Yes this! :)

Callisign bigger: Yes i'd like that too. But with the current libs not possible. We tried several other libs, but they're all bloated as hell

Hah yes never found a good pdf library much as one looks.

[int2001]

Better?

if yes, i create PR

[magicbug]

Much, i'm just thinking bigger font size

[magicbug]

Thanks for doing that, I know i'm being fussy

[int2001]

You can still adjust Fontsize on your own (for the whole thing).
Lib has to possiblity to change that for several textelements :(

[magicbug]

Yeah I had to drop 2 sizes for the new layout not that its a problem, much better formatted as a table

[pa3hfj]

In the process of making (the really impressive!!) Cloudlog my main logbook I played a little with the QSL labelprinting feature. Apart from the before-mentioned wishes of sorting in DXCC order to make the QSL-bureau happy and a bold printed callsign I also seem to miss the QSL-VIA entry in case a QSL-manager is used. Or do I overlook something?

This functionality sure makes printing labels with my Dymo label printer a lot easier then exporting the log in ADIF and using a seperate program for printing. Thanks for all the efforts!

[dg9vh]

This layout is not conform with with the directions of the qsl-buros regarding the via position I think. It would be confusing having the "| send"-part in it. I think it would be better to have it "1A0C via EA5RM"

just my 2 cent. I am not using the label-printing function.

[int2001]

yes, you're right, Kim.
As long as i use the CL-Labels i print them and as an addon i write the "To" and "Via" also into the right Fields on the Card.
I think the new QRZ-/HamQTH-Lookup-Link will reduce workload when doing this.

But FR was explicit: Add the VIA

BTW: First Approach was "1A0C via EA5RM" - but not everyone was happy with that. Let's wait for more Feedback. Can be adjusted easiliy

[pa3hfj]

Personally for me also the form as in "1A0C via EA5RM" would suffice. Clear on first look for the QSL-handlers in the bureau. And if the label is located on the right top edge of the card a written addition seems not necessary. But that depends on the design of the card of course.

[int2001]

changed it:

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