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IDEA: Convert Radio Frequency scan Data for 3 Manufacturers Data structures

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floydlloyd:
Hi all,

I am an Audio Engineer at a Concert Hall and frequently use Wireless Microphone technology. I have to co-ordinate the Radio Frequency assignments to avoid interference.
There are 3 main Manufacturers of this gear, and they use different .csv file structures for the data imported into their equipment to generate usable non interfering frequency selections.
I've written a Power Shell script that takes the .csv output of a very common handheld Radio Frequency scanner and converts it to the proper structure for importation into the various Manufacturers equipment to ease the process of assigning Frequencies to Wireless Microphones.
I love it ... it works, but is clunky, and I'd like someone to make it robust and multi platform if possible. Currently to run it on Mac I load a Windows Virtual Machine and run it that way ... ugh
I do have a budget line for this so please let me know if it's too much for the "snacks" section .... if so, we can move it to an appropriate spot.

Cheers and thanks,

Lloyd B

ewemoa:
Not sure how relevant it is, but Powershell Core is (somewhat?) multi-platform.  Perhaps it's possible that what you have is already (or close to being?) multi-platform?

floydlloyd:
Hi Ewemoa,

I would really like to be able to release this to the Audio community as a gift to those who would find it useful. To that end  I'd want it to be as simple as ... "run this" if possible.

In it's current form, there is a niggling issue where a file selection dialog popup appears behind the main window and unless you know it's there, the thing appears to be locked up. I was unable to solve it in a reasonable amount of time and got frustrated.

From what I've read it could run on Mac with some tweaking  and effort on the end users part to install stuff on the Mac.

I don't have knowledge of any language, but seem to be able to at least intrinsically understand the concept of programming. It was very mentally taxing and time consuming for me to constantly refer to the Powershell documentation and find existing snippets to borrow. I'd also hate to be the person who wrote something so insecure that it could takeover the machine or some dumb thing like that.

That "hidden" dialog is a real pain, as others who have tested it for me have gotten stumped.

I suppose I could be happier if someone were to at least help solve that issue and maybe find a straightforward way to load the proper libraries and run it on a Mac as simply as possible.

I think the script itself is reasonably commented to give someone an Idea what I'm trying to do.

Thanks for the inspiration to explain things a little further.

ewemoa:
Below are some possibly relevant thoughts, perhaps others will jump in with better suggestions / corrections.

If you're looking for something that doesn't involve additionally installing something and be multi-platform, I guess Powershell Core isn't going to do as that would also need to be installed.  Also, not everything written for the original Windows Powershell is going to run with Powershell Core -- this very much depends on the code in question though.

One general alternative path is a rewrite in something like Node.js (+ nexe), Nim, or something else which has the practical option of producing an executable for each platform you have an interest in deploying to.  Some of these options may result in a much larger download though -- unfortunately, it can often be the case that the ones that are easier to write the code for tend to produce larger files.

Depending on the details of what your code does, there may be another alternative that might work.  It's the idea of writing a web-based app (though it could be stored in local files, so you wouldn't need network access to run it) that runs in a web browser.

Without seeing and working with the code in question a bit though, it's not clear which alternative might be appropriate and how much work it might be to carry out.

Do you mind posting the code for others to examine?  Perhaps if the details can be studied, someone can give a better assessment about what might be involved.

Shades:
Java has support for all operating systems. But might be overkill and an extra software dependency, which may be a problem for some.

There is software that is able to do such conversions. Quite some time ago I had to take look into the Bizztalk Server software from Microsoft to make the output of one piece of middleware to fit into another piece of middleware. While that was a fruitless endeavor (and way too expensive), the concept behind it might actually be helpful in the situation the OP describes.

The Bizztalk software allowed you to create adapters that take the output from one piece of software and "feed" that to an adapter for the other piece of software and have these pieces of software communicating directly. Those adapters could be made with a GUI and once created, they would function indefinitely. Bizztalk could do the same with files and lots of other types of data. Now, Bizztalk is a very expensive proposition, but there is an alternative called: FlowHeater Designer, which does use the concept of adapters and allows you to create them in a visual way. FlowHeater Designer is not nearly as extensive as BizzTalk is, but that is reflected in the price.

From what I understand is that content restructuring in a csv file is required. It would require 3 adapters to be created (one for each Manufacturer) and the FlowHeater software would be able to convert the content between these adapters, each generating a file: content_<manufacturer.name>.csv, ready to be imported into the software from each manufacturer. How to do that automatically within the Mac operating system is up to you. I make it a point to not work with any Apple gear, whenever I can think of a reason no to. 

You can try their freeware version to see if this type of software can actually help out. I have no affiliation with this software and no real experience with it either. But as a concept I do see possibilities.

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