Bulletins and announcements can now be viewed on the new APRS bulletin board page.
The APRS bulletin format doesn't really scale up on the Internet, but the page tries to show local announcements (within 500 km of your location) first. If your location is not guessed correctly, use the Save current map view as default view Option to tell the site where you're located.
The news of https://aprs.fi/ - new features and interesting attractions found in the APRS and AIS worlds.
I was just going to write and suggest something like that - you must be reading the APRSSIG list :-)
ReplyDeleteI was going to suggest that such functionality could be placed on the bottom of the right hand frame of the map view, and restricted to bulletins/announcements that originate from a station that is within the current map view.
I was also going to suggest that it might be useful to have a similar display of the currently visible objects (perhaps all stations!) and their most recent status text, again, limited by the map view.
I do take a peek at the archive sometimes. :)
ReplyDeleteI gave a thought of putting these on the map some day, now that they're in the database in a more proper schema. I'll have to try out if it can be done without hurting performance too much, additional real-time map features can easily slow it down (and they also hit the server much more than separate pages - I really need to get an additional server within a month or two).
According to Analytics reports, 43% of aprs.fi users are using displays with a resolution of 1024x768, and 22% have 1280x1024. So I have to be careful not to eat too much screen estate from the map.
Thanks for the new feature - but the localization isn't working for me. I get bulletins, beacons and messages from all over.
ReplyDeleteIt will always show all bulletins and announcements. If there are local ones (sent by someone within 500km from your location), they will be shown first in a table labeled Bulletins and announcements sent by stations within 500 km from your location.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should make the table visible even if it'd happen to be empty. Would reduce confusion, maybe.
OK, I understand better now - and yes, having the empty table makes it more useful.
ReplyDeleteCould you do the same for beacon texts, please?
I'll think about it. Probably not before I get some more hardware. There are a lot more beacons coming in than bulletins, and doing this requires additional disk I/O.
ReplyDeleteA couple days ago I ordered 4GB more memory for the current server, and yesterday received offers for new server hardware. Price around 1200 EUR, 1 770 USD... ouch. And it's badly needed, one or two of these.
Understood ... thanks!
ReplyDeleteMore thought about this: one of the reasons I suggested putting the localized display in a frame on the main page (I envision it under the control panel) is that that way, the code doesn't have to hit the server any more times. The same data that's being grabbed to update the map display could also update the panel of messages/beacons/status texts...
ReplyDelete