VCM Suite feature suggestions

I'm brand-new to actual hands-on tuning with HPTuners, but I've been casually reading and learning how this stuff works for many years. (I also have just a touch of hands-on with the FAST XFI tuning software, but that was almost a decade ago). I'm also a veteran software engineer (37 years experience) with a lifelong focus on usability and attention to detail. Just in my first couple hours of using the software, I can already see a bunch of things I would want to improve if I could. A lot of these are focused on making it so that someone with relatively little tuning experience can come up to speed faster. As it is, VCM Editor is a bit like reading about advanced research subjects on Wikipedia -- the articles only make sense to the people who already know the information they contain. The stuff I need to focus on while I work on my tune is scattered all over everywhere, surrounded by clutter that either isn't relevant at all for the vehicle in question, or isn't relevant right now.

Maybe some of these things are bad ideas for reasons I'll discover as I continue to learn the software. If that's the case, I'd love to understand!

Notably, my knowledge and experience of the VCM suite is limited to gen3 GM V8 tuning. I know a bit about gen4, but hardly anything about other brands and platforms VCM Suite supports. So some of my ideas might be a bit too narrowminded in that sense, but I hope they can be translated into more broadly helpful suggestions by someone with knowledge of all supported platforms.

1. I would create a New Tune Wizard. This would walk the user through a number of things that must be configured on any tune. PCM type, cylinder count, displacement, injector data, power adder, MAF/SD, MAF calibration, auto/manual transmission, idle RPM, fuel/spark cutoffs, etc.
   
   • The two views -- Basic and Advanced -- could then be joined by a third view I'll call "Smart", which would do things like:
     
     • hide or disable all automatic transmission tuning stuff if you selected manual trans
     • hide or disable MAF calibration if you selected Speed Density
     • Advanced users could simply choose Advanced view instead of Smart to work around any limitations imposed by this new option.
   • The wizard could then take you through the most standard bits of the tuning process. It could walk you through switching to an RTT OS, tuning fueling (VE / torque / etc) tables, fine-tuning the idle, etc.
   • Of course the details of the wizard would vary depending on the platform, since the tuning process itself and what rules affect what's relevant and when also vary in the same way.
2. I would combine VCM Editor and VCM Scanner into a single application (call it something like VCM Pro). Scanner could just be another sub-window like Engine or Trans. Care would need to be taken here to not make usability worse, but I believe this would enable a some really nice capabilities:
   
   1. Apply RTT tuning changes directly to the open tune file with a single click (or, perhaps better yet, just make those changes directly to the open tune).
   2. Switch between the two apps without having to disconnect one app and then connect the other.
3. Make it so that Save As is the default behavior; any time you save, it prompts you for a file name and automatically updates a timestamp in the name. If you want to overwrite a previous file, then you explicitly specify an existing name, then confirm your intent to overwrite. (This might annoy some users, so maybe it could be an optional behavior, enabled in the app's settings.)
4. Update the tune file format with change tracking.
   
   • As-is, it's really hard to keep track of what changes I've made in which files. If the editor logged every single change I made as I made it, and wrote it to the file, then I wouldn't have to worry about carefully using save-as constantly, adding date suffixes and a note about what I changed each time. I feel like I'm back in the 90's, naming Word docs things like "1997 Financial Report - Final Final - Really Final 1998-01-22 - Final.doc". :D
   • I'm under the impression that the tune file itself is actually just the binary tune, exactly as it would be flashed to the PCM. If that's the case, perhaps this would most easily be implemented by making the tune "file" a compressed archive (e.g. ZIP), where each successive save writes two new files to the archive: one the actual binary tune, and another a program-readable changelog (including an optional note supplied by the user). The changelog could also be a single file that gets appended. Or, scrap that entirely and just store a database file (SQLite?) with BLOB copies of each revision of the tune, plus a simple set of tables for tracking the change deltas and user notes.
   • I'm guessing this would be a significant change, but it would be enormously beneficial. Any software engineer who's used a source control system (Git, Subversion) should have a decent understanding of the benefits here.
5. In the real-time tuning interface, I'd love some sort of indication of whether the changes I just made have actually taken effect. My understanding is that things like IACs take several seconds to apply (due to the time it takes the IAC stepper motor to move); some kind of feedback loop would be wonderful. I don't know if there's a way to accomplish this, but it'd be nice!
6. I'd love an interface that showed what mode the PCM is in, and told me exactly which tables were applicable at the moment.
7. Make a way to take a tune file with an custom OS and go back to one with the original OS.
   
   • This could be accomplished by choosing a tune file with the original OS and then having VCM Editor copy all of the table data onto that file, then prompting to save-as.
   • This could also be accomplished by way of the change-tracking feature suggested above; if I apply a custom OS, just keep the original OS in the file history such that it can be restored.
8. Self-tuning features like what's found on aftermarket PCMs. You set up a real-time tuning OS, configure an input for a wideband O2 sensor, configure target A/F, and then just run the engine. Using the RTT mechanism and data coming from the PCM, it would make adjustments to the tune.
9. Automatic population of calibration data. Maybe HPTuners could host a database of known fuel injectors, MAF sensors, etc. A user could then select what they're using from the known products (if present), and then Editor would download the calibration data and apply it to the tune file, making translations/conversions as needed for different platforms. If using something that isn't in the database, the user could submit it to HPTuners. If some threshold number of users upload the exact same data for a given product, then it would become official and available for selection in the application.

If you're a longtime VCM Suite user, I'd love your thoughts on whether you'd find these changes valuable. I'd also love to know what else you think might be helpful!

If you work at HPTuners, especially if you work on the VCM Suite software as an engineer, tester, or product manager, I would love to hear what you think of the feasibility of these changes. :)