New Website

Just a quick heads up that soon we will have a new SOTA website. I do hope to have it live before Christmas.

There is a possibility that certain functions may be at risk during the transition. These are Spotlite and the RSS feed. I know that many people and some third party software rely on these functions.

It is also worth mentioning that some aspects of SOTAwatch will be now incorporated in the new website and eventually it is entirely possible that a fully new version of SOTAwatch will end up more integrated as well. This will also impact some third party software that relies on screenscraping.

Alongside this, I will also be launching a new SOTA API service. Now it will not be fully comprehensive for some time but should, over time, end up serving as an adequate data source for all third party software requirements.

Anyway, if you have any specific concerns regarding the impact of these changes upon software that you are involved with, then please get in touch with me directly by email, private message or via the contact page on the website.

73, Jon

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Iā€™m very interested to the new sota api service, could you provide a preview of the methods?

73 de in3aqk

Looking forward to the new website Jon, however Iā€™m a bit thick, what is an API service? I just googled it & my head exploded!
Mr Luddite of Buxton :wink:

Application Programmer Interface - API

Does what it says on the tin so to speak, you can use it to run code into certain controlled parts of a website to perform more specific functions, or should I say methods :smile: Automatic sign-in is an unrelated example.

Jonathan

Thank God I am not alone!

I feel pretty inadequate at times, hanging out with all these MT computer nerdsā€¦

Brian

Ta !

Will the new site be running alongside the existing site for a while ? or will we need to move to the new one on a given day ?

Before too long, Iā€™ll have some documentation available which will outline all current methods. And then Iā€™ll develop it from there probably largely in response to requests for additional methods from those that need them.

As HFR said, it provides SOTA data in a format (in this case two formats called ā€˜xmlā€™ and ā€˜jsonā€™) that is easy for other software to consume.

Shortly before I am due to go live, I will probably make the new website available at an alternative URL. Additionally, after the new website goes live, the old one will also be accessible at an alternative URL. So, yes both will be available for a period before and after the transition.

73, Jon

HI

Very interested in the API.
Is there any information we can gat a look at ?

Allen
VK3HRA

Also interested in the API

G4POP - Log4OM Development Team

Jon, itā€™s good to see the API close to going live. As you may recall, you and I have already discussed these forthcoming developments in private emails some few weeks ago, where I laid out broadly what was needed by the mapping project.

Since Iā€™ve heard nothing further from you via email since 13th October, I have been wondering whether youā€™ve forgotten our discussion, or that you may perhaps consider the SMP to be of too little relevance to SOTA to warrant your expending further time and energy in contacting me again via email BEFORE going live with the new API? Do you need me now to reiterate the requirements of the mapping project, or to provide specific examples of additional methods required?

Understand, Iā€™m quite prepared to wait quietly in line, cap in hand, with the other interested parties here - first come, first served, everybody gets a fair dip of the API soup-ladle. Iā€™ll even bring a battered tin cup - I seem to remember seeing one lying around in Ye Olde Shack hereā€¦

Excellent! We British love an orderly queue.

However, thereā€™s no need to be melodramatic Rob, I can assure you that you are first in line.

The API is not quite ready for use yet. I was merely wanting to give other folk a heads up as well, especially with the new website approaching and the potential impact on some third party software that this might entail.

@VK3HRA & @G4POP - if you could drop me your email address via PM or the website contact page, Iā€™ll also contact you with details. Youā€™ll need to get in line behind Rob though :wink:

73, Jon

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[quote=ā€œGM4ZFZ, post:12, topic:12104ā€]
However, thereā€™s no need to be melodramatic Rob
[/quote]Melodrama? - regular readers of this column will know me to be capable of far greater feats of melodrama than displayed hereā€¦ :smiling_imp:

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Melodrama? Weā€™ve already had a performance of ā€œHiss the Villainā€ with full audience participation in another thread today, whatā€™s next - War and Peace? :wink:

Brian

Aahhh, audience participation: theatre in the round - the roar of the grease-paint, the smell of the crowd. Other people with their idiosyncrasies do add another dimension to our sorry existence, donā€™t they:

All the worldā€™s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many partsā€¦

Which part are you going to play today, Brian?

It depends on how things go, but if necessary:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-cappā€™d towā€™rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Heavy stuff for a wet Sunday!

Brian

Plays within plays within plays - wonderful stuff.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Rob

From the sublime to the gorblimey:

Goodbye-ee, goodbye-ee, wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee!

Anyway, apologies for the light entertainment!

Brian

ā€œwipe the tear, baby dearā€

I always wondered if there was something odd about you two. Here in San Francisco, we donā€™t give it a second thought. Doesnā€™t make you a bad person, you know. Hee Hee

Elliott, K6EL

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Just to say Iā€™ll be switching across to the new website in the next day or 3.

Anyone relying on either Spotlite or the RssFeed should probably switch their usage now to:

These URIs work now, will do so through the transition and for some time afterwards.

73, Jon

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