Neil McGuire 955603 Posted April 5, 2007 at 12:49 AM Posted April 5, 2007 at 12:49 AM Not sure the reasoning, but why can't friends be added in some option page? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Ogden 985378 Posted April 5, 2007 at 05:32 AM Posted April 5, 2007 at 05:32 AM Whats wrong with the way you add them now? Seems easy enough to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Beach 915973 Posted April 5, 2007 at 06:03 AM Posted April 5, 2007 at 06:03 AM Sometimes your friends are not online when you are on vroute Brian Beach VatsimPHP Developer: http://www.bbflights.com/VatsimPHP/ AFA Detroit Hub Director: http://www.flyafa.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Ogden 985378 Posted April 5, 2007 at 02:33 PM Posted April 5, 2007 at 02:33 PM Not much of a friend then are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomislav Zorman 860219 Posted April 8, 2007 at 06:26 AM Posted April 8, 2007 at 06:26 AM Think Brian has a point here: For VAs would be a great advantage to be able to enter manually pilots on this list. .. However, this is the brend new application and one can not expect that specific requirements from all users can be fulfilled in the first shoot. Think overall functionallity and brilliant briefing / flight planning support given deserves highest marks and system is considerable step forward in support tools on VATSIM. .. Within the few months it will become more or less obvious what most of the users would like to see in the next releases and to which extent it is possible to integrate in the system...than we can hope Michal will have time and pace to do it at some point in future. RGDS Tom www.fly-sea.com Your partner airline Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michal Rok Posted April 8, 2007 at 08:21 PM Posted April 8, 2007 at 08:21 PM I started working on a feature to add friends by PID or by last name. My personal standards for user friendliness prohibit simply displaying a PID without a name, so I need to collect some real names behind those PIDs before finishing the feature. Will take a couple weeks I guess before the data is reasonably complete, and then I will finish the feature. Michal vroute.net founder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Jackson 969667 Posted April 10, 2007 at 11:45 PM Posted April 10, 2007 at 11:45 PM I started working on a feature to add friends by PID or by last name. My personal standards for user friendliness prohibit simply displaying a PID without a name, so I need to collect some real names behind those PIDs before finishing the feature. Will take a couple weeks I guess before the data is reasonably complete, and then I will finish the feature. I would find this feature useful too (but am quite prepared to wait for it! Vroute is a great first version, and I'm in awe of it, for the most part!) But just in case it makes life easier for you, Michal, have you examined the way ServInfo used to do this? I'm pretty sure that it never carried any repository of name-to-PID data in any local file or remote Servinfo server - and I'm fairly sure it used a lookup in realtime to some part of VATSIM. I agree and support your ideal that only having the PIDs displayed would be bad news, but I can't help thinking that requiring Vroute itself (or its mother-ship server) to hold a database of all VATSIM usernames/PIDs places a big load on your systems (and management/data-cleansing time too!). There doesn't appear to be any way of accessing the official web-based VATSIM search (at http://data.vatsim.net/stats/), because there is a CAPTCHA 'anti-bot' p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]word to enter - but I'm sure ServInfo must've had a way to get at this data, didn't it? My apologies if I'm way off base here - just thought I'd mention it in case it saves you some needless effort. Thanks again for a great app! Regards Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michal Rok Posted April 11, 2007 at 04:35 AM Posted April 11, 2007 at 04:35 AM ServInfo does not convert PIDs to names unless the person is online - then it is a very easy job because the data is supplied by VATSIM in a open-text file with SI data. What I wanted to do was to convert a PID the user is entering to a name at the point in time when new "friend" entry is made - when no [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umption about the friend's online presence can be made. I plan no administrative tasks to manage the PID->name database - it is supposed to be created automatically, updated automatically - and all with minimum effort from my side. People rarely change their real first and last name, and if they do then nobody will complain about vroute showing outdated info for a week or two. All this is only needed to edit the list of your friends - if you ask vroute to show you that list, you'd rather prefer to have at least some names, and not just a column of numbers. So if I can decode 80% of your friends and show "name unknown" next to a couple records then it sounds like an acceptable solution. The data i collected over just a few days allows me to decode 80% of all existing "friend" records. Michal vroute.net founder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Jackson 969667 Posted April 11, 2007 at 09:50 AM Posted April 11, 2007 at 09:50 AM Understood, Michal - Yours sounds like a workable solution, now that I understand it better. I wondered whether ServInfo did its lookup immediately (whether the user was online or not), but you're bound to be right! I do remember entering all my buddies as PIDs, though - and the list of them always remained as such, with precisely the annoying confusion you're attempting to avoid (well done for that, btw). Obviously, they only displayed on-screen in the main views when they were online, at which point, the lookup was presumably done, so they were shown as names. Good luck with the task, anyway. Let's hope there aren't too many new VATSIM females who decide to get married and change their surnames, eh? (as if! LOL... I only know of one woman on the whole of VATSIM!) Regards Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Blackburn Posted April 11, 2007 at 10:07 AM Posted April 11, 2007 at 10:07 AM I know of one woman in VATSIM who recently got married and had her surname changed so it isn't as unique as you think Norman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michal Rok Posted April 11, 2007 at 07:42 PM Posted April 11, 2007 at 07:42 PM And every time I look at US controllers online I see someone with a "(Ms.)" prefix in front of her name at Portland twr. I suppose it must be attracting a lot of traffic Neil - this solution has it's downsides too. I can imagine that someone who used to put "NEWBIE" next to his real name on first flights will, as soon as he begins to think that he's not newbie anymore, demand that I immediately change that awful suffix. Michal vroute.net founder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cristi Neagu 987169 Posted April 11, 2007 at 10:14 PM Posted April 11, 2007 at 10:14 PM Hello, Is there a way to add friends into vRoute just using their PID? I mean... I know that you can add a friend if he's on-line, but can you add him just by knowing his PID, even if he's not online? How? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Jackson 969667 Posted April 11, 2007 at 11:50 PM Posted April 11, 2007 at 11:50 PM Neil - this solution has it's downsides too. I can imagine that someone who used to put "NEWBIE" next to his real name on first flights will, as soon as he begins to think that he's not newbie anymore, demand that I immediately change that awful suffix. Indeed - that's kinda what I was hinting at in my first post... once you take on a core database of that nature, cleansing becomes an issue - sometimes for the strangest of end-user personal reasons! (speaking as one who currently manages a few fairly huge databases for various firms & sporting clubs ). It can be a real grind, and a bit of a timewaster, especially if there exists an easier way that can automatically ensure the data is always fresh. I wonder... we know that VATSIM definitely has a stats-lookup facility that will show up offline users, albeit that this server is currently just for web-access, and CAPTCHA-locked... but is it possible that some special, secret (to you and the VATSIM board) authenticated connection could be made, solely for use by VROUTE's 'mother-ship' server alone? ie - the queries are still routed to you, initially, but you 'hand-off' the queries (en m[Mod - Happy Thoughts]e) to VATSIM, and then cache and redistribute the answers. It'd still be secure (providing you and VATSIM worked out the authentication drill accordingly). It strikes me that would be beneficial and VROUTE is exactly the kind of app that VATSIM ought to support, I think. I've no idea if you're already in contact with them during the development of VROUTE, but if you're not, they'd be mad to not make easier for VROUTE to do its rather excellent job! Get them to give you a back-door Regards Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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