Sunday, November 1, 2009

Multiple targets on live map (and other small stuff)

On Saturday I did the planned upgrade. The big new user-visible feature is that you can now track multiple targets on the map. Just type in multiple callsigns separated with a comma: Rautauoma, OH2RDK, or click on 'start tracking' more than once. This code has been running on the beta site for a week now.

There are also some smaller improvements, like symbols being shown in the "other SSIDs" list, callsign links in APRS paths shown in the info balloons, fixed web search, and a JavaScript memory leak workaround for IE.

Oh yeah, referenced digipeaters and igates are now shown when you look up a day in the history. There is little bug in there, though - it shows their current positions, instead of their positions on the selected day. But hey, they rarely move.

There were also some rather large changes under the hood, causing a longer outage than usually. I replaced the Apache web server software with nginx, which allows me to run with HTTP keep-alive again (without running out of memory), and should generally handle larger amounts of users without that much trouble. It also helps with resource management - I'm now running separate web server processes for each service instead of a single Apache process pool for a large number of virtual servers. Now, if one service gets a beating, the others won't be affected so easily. Upgrades and configuration errors in one service won't break others, either. The downside is that name-based vhosts are out of the question.

Today's photo was taken on 11th of August at the summer cottage in Maaninka. EXIF says 9:39:17 PM. It's freezing and very dark in Helsinki today, so I'd rather go back a few months.

PS. I'll be in Bordeaux, France for the next 2 weeks or so.
at

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 14, 2009 at 12:43 AM

    Hi,

    This is sort-of related to the tacking, but more related to the map view itself.

    Is there a legend anywhere that explains what these different icons mean? The mobile stations themselves (shown as small car icons) are blindingly obvious, but the others, no so. e.g. what does the "WX" symbol mean (e.g. VK4XDB)?

    There's no alt text on the icons, nor can I find any such legend.

    It's a great site, and has sparked my curiousity in APRS. I'll have to get a node on air some day.

    Regards,
    Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)

    ReplyDelete
  2. HessuDecember 14, 2009 at 5:27 PM

    The APRS symbols are maintained by Stephen Smith, WA8LMF. You can find a PDF-formatted symbols reference chart there. Maybe I should implement some sort of pop-up legends for the icons.

    ReplyDelete