As we’ve been hinting for a while, there’s a new version of SOTAMaps and sotadata that will be integrated via Single Sign-On. In the spirit of Christmas, as a gift to all, I’m making it available for extended Beta stage. The old versions will still work concurrently with the existing ones, but you can play around and see the new version. The main change is the deprecation of the V1 CSV/TSV format, and replacing the separate Chaser/Activator upload so that you can upload a single CSV containing Chaser records, Activator records and S2S records all in one go.
The other changes are under the surface, allowing us a lot more flexibility in separating the interface from the database itself, plus the addition of SSL. These are less likely to be visible. Rob and I will work over the next few days to configure the new SOTA Mapping Project to go live too.
I’d like to call out a special thanks to my initial Beta testers who provided feedback: DB7MM, DD5LP, G4AZS, HB9DQM, M1MAJ, N0MAP, VK1AD and VK2IO. If I’ve forgotten anyone, my apologies.
I could just provide you the link, but it’s Christmas, and that means everything has to be a riddle (nice crossword, Rob - I learnt to love summitslist.csv!). Here’s a little tour around the SOTA world that at the end will take you to the new sotadata website.
thanks for the riddle … i found my way to the new sotadata website! but I’m not sure if i have to register as a new user for the new database or just one of the old passwords?!
The actual database engine and store is the same. We just have 2 web front ends talking to the same data store. You use the same credentials as before.
Well I found it, but one of the clues appears to give a bogus character (from the CSV but not if using the database web site).
To clarify that it appears the viewing the Summit Names by opening the CSV in Microsoft Office (or other tools that use the Microsoft libraries for opening CSV files) in-correctly shows a number of strange characters for Summit names that have letters with accents. Opening the CSV in some Text only editors shows what I presume are the correct letters.
Just found this ten minutes ago - two of the summits appear to be no longer valid, but it’s pretty obvious what they should represent. So, I can finally view the new site, thanks…
Oh, validity, right. I just scanned the database tables for summits that met my needs and chose associations around the world. I would pick the one association that has substantial deletions
Yes, it’s a pain that it does this. You need to import the data and change the file type in the import wizard as Excel ignores BOM in files.
The easier way is to stop using Office and use LibreOffice. For me LO does all I want, runs on low end machines as well as higher spec PCs and gives the same results on Linux and Windows. It’s free too but you can make donations.
Just a quick comment to say that if anybody is having time-out problems while logged in to this new SOTAData site, then please let us know here, giving details of your operating system and browser.
Finally found it too.
I was thinking way to complicated - haha story of my life - reading css thinking there is some css (cascaded style sheet) code hiding something … omg it’s so simple.
Btw. do I see that correct that there is now only one csv upload? That is a nice simplification to my usual log preparation and upload workflow. Now not having to extract the S2S extra for the chaser log is nice.
And mobile use on Android/Chrome is finally working too
Edit: almost. Selecting the Show analysis checkbox breaks the table format.
Hi Joe,
Yes the upload now takes care of S2S entries for you from your activation log, you don’t need to go into the chaser section separately as you used to have to do.
Viewing the sotadata site and looking at reports, I notice that the Analysis option offers band by band analysis of an activator log, but does not offer analysis by mode. The options on those reports to list by band or mode are also not offered in the version currently displayed. I hope those options will be returned eventually.
The login cookie appears to be still intact after 24 hours too.
The site appears to work smoothly on my system here (windows 10, Chrome browser).
thanks guys, great progress, big job.
73 Andrew VK1DA/2UH
(decoded the site address in an excel spreadsheet using vlookup, couldn’t just search the names list manually!)
The new interface works soooo much better with my Samsung tablet and phone. I always had problems getting the drop down menus to initiate and even changed from Firefox to Opera to effect an improvement, but even that was unreliable.
Many thanks for all the hard work put that has been put in.
Thank you @VK3ARR for the advance notice a few months back. I have been very busy with life in general and have made no progress toward V2 only .csv file output. That said, it won’t take long once I start as the code is already in the app - has been there for 4 years - I just need to make it work.
One question, is the database that the beta page interacts with the real production database, or can I just upload whatever I want and fear nothing?
- reading css thinking there is some css (cascaded style sheet) code hiding something … omg it’s so simple.