Explanation

ECTLogger documentation

Two kinds of reader end up here, and they want opposite things. Somebody checking into their first net wants one path with no decisions in it. Somebody who has run a hundred nets wants a complete list they can scan mid-net without reading a word of narrative.

Trying to serve both in one document is what produced the guide this site replaced: 1,084 lines, no landmarks, and nothing anyone could find. So the two are separated. Tutorials have a single guaranteed path. How-to pages assume you know what you want. Reference is complete and says nothing twice. Every page says at the top which of those it is.

New here

Each of these takes a few minutes and ends with something real on the screen.

Tutorial Check into your first net Get an account, find a net that is running, and put your callsign on the list. Assumes nothing. Tutorial Run your first net Create a net, open it, log a few stations, and close it out with the log in your inbox. Tutorial Set up a recurring schedule Turn a weekly net into a schedule that creates itself, reminds its staff, and rotates Net Control.

The four paths

Path 1 Operators You check into nets. Account and profile, finding a net, checking in, status and rechecks, chat, your location on the map, filing traffic, and your own statistics. Path 2 Net control You are running the net, as Net Control, Logger, or Relay. The desk, logging check-ins, speed entry, several frequencies at once, moderation, traffic, and closing the net. Path 3 Net managers You own a net or a schedule. Creating nets, recurrence, net staff and the rotation, scripts and announcements, lobby and auto-close, reports and exports. Path 4 Administrators You hold the Admin role on an instance. Users and roles, custom check-in fields, shared frequencies, branding, the maintenance banner, and security.

The order is deliberate. It is the order people actually move through: you take part in somebody else’s net before you run one, you run one before you own the schedule, and owning a schedule is not the same job as administering the instance it runs on.

Nothing stops you jumping straight to the path you need. The paths do not build on each other, and each page names what it assumes.

Also here

Server operators Self-hosting Running your own instance: installation, deployment behind a reverse proxy, email, logging, and hardening. A different job from the admin panel, so it is a separate track rather than a fifth path. Reference Reference The complete lists. Station statuses, the roles and permissions matrix, check-in fields, speed entry syntax, location formats, the emails we send, feeds, and the glossary. About About and support Known issues, how to get help, the changelog, the roadmap, and the privacy policy.

A note on what is documented here

This site describes what is in production at app.ectlogger.us today. A feature still being built does not get a page until it ships, because a page describing something you cannot find is worse than no page at all.

If a page here disagrees with what you see on your screen, the page is wrong. Every page carries its owner and the date it was last reviewed at the bottom, and a link to correct it. Say something, or open an issue: it is one person maintaining this, and the site is only as current as the last person who noticed.