The File Menu

• Print: This item requires that Ghostscript and the gv utility were found when Xastir was built. It causes the map pixmap to be dumped to a Postscript file and then either sent to gv for preview or to the printer. Choosing it pulls up a dialog box where you can change the paths and commands used for printing or preview.

• Configure: Pulls up a sub menu of configuration actions.

• Open Log File: Xastir can read a file of APRS packets logged previously and display the contents of them on the map.

• TNC, Net, IGate, Message, WX, WX Alert logging: Xastir can create log files containing various subsets of the information it receives. These checkboxes enable those logs.

• PNG and KML Snapshots. Xastir can create snapshot files of its map screen periodically. PNG files are just images that can be viewed in any way. At the same time that the PNG snapshot is created, a KML version is also created. The KML version includes information that allows the PNG snapshot to be imported and properly placed into any program that knows how to read KML files (most GIS programs can).

  KML snapshots are KML files that contain point and line data for all of the APRS items that you have received. These files can be imported into GIS or converted to other vector formats.

  KML support was originally added for the purpose of importing APRS information and views into Google Earth, but Google Earth is long gone. Many other GIS programs support the KML format, though, and these files remain useful.