How best to support Winlink forms

[aanon4]

There are a lot of winlink forms; an unreasonable number to include all by default for most people. For those who use Winlink, how should forms be best structured? Should there be specific groups which should be included by default? Are they're groups of forms most people use? Other thoughts?

[jlp78]

I would prefer to err on the side of including more forms than fewer forms. We don't know what forms people will find useful. If this isn't feasible, then a means to support user addition of new forms (with some kind of vetting, perhaps) would be most usable. Winlink does provide an automated mechanism to update to the latest forms release (and there is a corresponding mechanism for Pat that could be leveraged if the Winlink mechanism proves to be less than trivial to implement).

Winlink itself allows you to add your own custom forms to your client. To make use of them, of course, the people you are sending them to must also have the same forms pack installed. I haven't tried Raven yet, so I don't know if this would be a feasible model to follow.

[edkraus]

I added Winlink to one of the channels. It gave me three or four possible forms total. Winlink has perhaps a hundred available and custom forms can be made.

Also, I filled out a form (form 132) and posted it. Of course, it went nowhere except into the message list on the Raven app itself. There is no actual Winlink connectivity so what is the point of this? Anyone who has Winlink already has the forms. Anyone who has Winlink and AREDN can already directly use an AREDN Post Office to move in proper Winlink method and insert either into RMS or into CMS. We are already doing this in Oregon and it works just fine.

I don't understand at all why Raven is pretending to be compatible with Winlink as it is not a Winlink client, and cannot by itself connect to the closed system. All it does is take a html form and allow you to fill it out. We do that here by simply saving the html form if we want it locally in our file system.

Unless I'm missing something here ... why do this at all?

[KG7GDB]

Are you thinking about ICS forms which are used for interoperability among emergency management or just Winlink forms?
Winlink is already available through network post office on the mesh.
However those forms can only be opened, viewed and edited easily by Winlink Express users.
The emergency management people at the served agencies are the ones who use and respond to the form. They do not have Winlink express, so we need to save as PDF or print the forms from Winlink. Alternatively we can send the form as a PDF attachment to regular email users.

With mesh, we can simply send PDF versions of the forms (created or edited by a word processor like Word or Libre Office) via file transfer. They are larger than the XML text files sent by Winlink, but don't require the receiver to have Winlink installed to read or print a formatted message.
Since Raven does file transfer, would it make sense to create file subfolders for ICS forms? You need probably need incoming and outgoing folders to keep things organized.
There are other web services running on the mesh including NextCloud and Citadel MeshMail which can handle PDFs.
Will Raven allow a user without Winlink to edit, send and receive ICS forms (Winlink or otherwise) without another application?
I will save my comments on which ICS or Winlink forms which we use regularly for later.
-Brett, KG7GDB

[edkraus]

Winlink creates html forms which can be stored either filled out or as blank forms on a thumb drive or shared drive. You do NOT have to have Winlink Express installed to fill out a Winlink form. You do have to have Winlink Express installed to do something useful with a form such as send or receive.

We have already in drills distributed to non ham EOC personnel blank Winlink forms they can fill out and then bring back to the radio operator to check for errors, then send. It's just html ... when sending the RMS Express software strips out the html and sends only text in a format that allows the receiving station to restore the html look on it's end.

Winlink CONSTANTLY is updating, changing, replacing, and adding "standard forms" and keeping instances of Raven up to date for compatibility would be a nightmare. As Raven cannot send or receive Winlink traffic, and it's easy to move forms as html files on and off a winlink computer, I recommend removing all references to Winlink from Raven.

An operator who wants to send or receive an ICS form can do so without the winlink formatting. All ICS forms are already available as fillable pdfs (I have an archive ready to use on one of our Filegator servers now). An operator who wants to send or receive winlink traffic in either html or pdf form can also use the file transfer function built into Raven, a file server, or post on existing MeshChat.

Ed

[Technodad]

First, the Winlink support already present was pretty impressive for an alpha release. Thanks for including this - it's a real plus for interoperability.

A bit off the forms topic, but I'll second the comment about the need for a Raven <-> Winlink server gateway; Winlink forms are much less useful if they only live in a Raven silo and can't be sent to someone using Winlink "classic".

On forms requirements:

• Our local SKYWARN group uses a semi-custom form to produce strip reports, so +1 for the ability to add a custom form. Our local CERT team has one custom form, and our ECT team has also used strip reports in EMCOM drills.
• The CERT team uses forms in the the General and ICS USA folders
• Training nets I participate in use ICS USA and Weather forms
• I have used RRI forms at shelter drills (once.)

So, my forms priorities would be, in order, ICS USA, Weather, and General; RRI is on the "nice to have" list.

The point about forms updates is also a good one, but several Winlink clients, e.g., pat and RadioMail automatically update, this seems feasible.

[jlp78]

The more I think about this, the more I think the need for Winlink forms in Raven is less.

Raven appears to be primarily for use in managing and communicating between the operators of the AREDN nodes in the network. You have to be an admin on a node to be able to use Raven at all, right? Given this requirement, the chances of anyone from a served agency actually using Raven at all is minimal. They will likely use other communications mechanisms running over the mesh network.

While it may be useful to have fillable forms available for the node operators to use, standard PDF fillable forms are fine due to the bandwidth available on the mesh (we're not limited to HF speeds, after all).

Based on these usage models, I retract my initial support for having all of the Winlink forms available and for user-installable forms. I'm not saying rip the support for Winlink forms out entirely, as they can still be useful and usable, but I think it's a feature without a MUST HAVE use case.

[edkraus]

I'll disagree on one point of your last post. I now see the Winlink forms as a detraction and should be removed. People might be given the false impression that you "can do Winlink over AREDN without installing Winlink". Not at all true and could confuse people in an emergency thinking they had sent a message into CMS or RMS. Better to drop this feature imho as it is misleading.

[jlp78]

Okay, I've actually played with the forms a bit. I think the issue is calling them "Winlink Forms". If we just call them "Forms", even if they're sourced from Winlink's forms package, then there wouldn't be any confusion about them interoperating with Winlink itself... unless actual Winlink client support is on the road map for Raven?

Maybe just call them "Forms" and curate out the ones that are Winlink specific? The Winlink standard forms could be updated programmatically when new builds of Raven are produced. There sill needs to be a facility for locally generated forms to be added/removed that should survive updates.

[jlp78]

Also, forms that are being viewed think they're in winlink express. If you try to click on the "reply" area of the ICS 213, for example, it pops up a little diagram of winlink express and tells you what to do. Not really helpful in Raven, so the forms would probably need some modification to really work well.