SMP main page enhancement

Online Resources SOTA Mapping
21

[quote=“DD5LP, post:20, topic:12176”]
it’s only if I change the setting in the define range box that it has no effect.
[/quote]Well, there we have it :smiley: - the “closed circle” / “open ring” controls are there to change the shape of the entire range extent i.e. the see-through blue circle behind all the summit markers. The shape of that area can be defined either as a single filled circle, or as a thick ring - an annulus if you will. This second area type was added at the request of a NASOTA member, and caters for UHF users. One has, incidentally, always to click the “Map” button to get the area shape to change…

The summit markers themselves have their own controls - the ones above the left-hand listing area: these control whether the markers are little triangles or activations-count circles.

There is no cross-talk between these groups of controls - they are completely independent of each other. In addition, switching between “Summit icons” and “Activations count” does NOT affect the listing-table sort order. Clicking on one of the table headers, however, WILL affect the sort order - be careful where the mouse-click occurs…

HTH, Rob

22

I understand the closed circle vs ring setting and use it, to indicate which summits are too close for (e.g.) 20m skip distance from my home - the internal dimension is the ground wave distance, the outer the estimated average skip distance.
Understand that I have to hit Map to execute.
But why is the summits display/sorting option needed in the define range and reference point panel when it is on the main screen?

Ed.

23

Ahh, I’m with you now - that “Summits display/sorting” section in the “Define Range…” window was placed there to allow the user to decide how to sort the table (no longer necessary now the the table can be sorted via the column headers) and whether to have the summits-listing table display either of the following column combinations:

  • Summit Code + Summit Name + Bearing + Distance, or
  • Summit Code + Summit Name + Activation count + Distance;

whichever one finds most interesting/relevant.

This columns option is still needed, since there’s unfortunately too little screen “real estate” to have more than four columns in the table, at least with the present page set-up.

I agree that this window section was misleading, and I’ve changed it accordingly. See what you think…

And… thanks for the help, as always - without the users testing these things, we wouldn’t get very far :sunglasses:

Rob

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24

Thanks Rob, agree with the revised text, it makes things clearer - thanks for doing the changes. I am always in awe at your work in the SMP, so I am glad my comments when testing are helpful.

73 Ed.

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[quote=“DD5LP, post:24, topic:12176”]
I am always in awe at your work in the SMP, so I am glad my comments when testing are helpful.
[/quote]Awe isn’t much help to a thirsty developer - buy me a beer when next we meet! :stuck_out_tongue:

26

A further enhancement to the main and range pages: after a request from Christophe ON6ZQ for some kind of visual clue for the summits that are soon due to expire, the activations circles now show a dark red border to indicate whether a summit is due to expire in the next 6 months:

smp_main_expiring.jpg1000×623 266 KB

Rob

1 Like
27

Happy to do that a Bier or three.

Ed.

P.S. Thanks for the expiring summits indication as well.

28

Hi Rob,

the due-to-expire-soon indicator seems useful indeed, but there might be some error related to that.
Currently all the summits in SP association are shown with dark red ring. I also checked OM and SV - same story.

By the way - this is a good occasion to thank you for the hard work you do on sotamaps.org. Aside from this little problem, I have been a happy user all the time and I’ll gladly get you a beer

Best regards,
Marcin

Zrzut ekranu 2015-12-15 o 13.19.13.png1512×786 1.86 MB

29

The same in Italy I/AA all seems expiring, I hope an error.

30

Everybody - ooops, sorry! I was reading the “expiring” flag correctly, but applying it wrongly - in fact, applying it in the opposite way intended.

A single character difference in the code is all it takes! - OK now… :dizzy_face:

Again, thanks to all who sent/posted error reports.

Rob

31

Definitely an error, Paolo :smile: You have some nice hills in your area there, some of which I’ve been lucky to climb but not, unfortunately, with a radio…

Rob

1 Like
32

No problem Rob:

“Who works can do mistakes”

33

Hi Marcin - well it’s nice to be appreciated for the admittedly hard work I put into this app. So, dziękuję bardzo, and if you make the beer a piwo żywieckie, I’ll be doubly pleased :wink:

Rob

34

Well a couple, but a helluva lot of em in the University that are always in use :confused:

Works great now Rob thank you :smile:

Jonathan

35

Hi Rob,
I’ve found another minor glitch I think. Summits that have not yet been activated (i.e. zero activation count) are appearing with a grey coloured background not the colour indicating the number of points that they are worth.

Also OE/TI-670 which will be removed at the end of this month 31st Dec. 2015 doesn’t have the red ring around it.

73 Ed.

36

Not a glitch, but a conscious decision on my part to colour them differently, in order to make them stand out from the rest. In a different type of application, I might have coloured them red, but that colour is taken by 10-pointers; so grey=untouched seemed like a good alternative.

[quote=“DD5LP, post:35, topic:12176”]
Also OE/TI-670 which will be removed at the end of this month 31st Dec. 2015 doesn’t have the red ring around it.
[/quote]Thanks for the heads-up there, I appreciate it as always. I would, however, appreciate it even more if such reports were to contain a little more information to help me to quickly locate the error. Something like this, maybe:

When using the range page to find summits within nnn kilometers of XXXXXX, I notice that the summit OE/TI-670 - which is due to be removed at the end of this month 31st Dec. 2015 - doesn’t have the red ring around it.

I would guess it couldn’t take much longer than a minute more to gather one’s thoughts and write a report like that. On the other hand, I’ve just spent 1 1/2 hours trying to narrow this thing down to the point where I understand WHERE and HOW you’ve noticed this discrepancy, and to be able to explain it.

So to the explanation: the summits OE/TI-670 Zwölferkopf and DL/AL-166 Zwoelferkopf are one and the same summit, which is presumably the reason why one of them has to go. When one views either of the ranges OE/TI or DL/AL individually in the main page, one doesn’t notice that each of these two “summits” actually occupy the same place in the map. In the range page, however, one can see this: look very carefully at the OE/TI-670 Zwölferkopf circle marker (zoom in as far as you can go), and you should be able to see a slight overlap between a light blue circle (DL/AL-166) and the red-ringed circle (OE/TI-670). Testing on my local machine, the latter appears to overlay the former, whereas in the live site, it’s the other way around: but that’s just the Google maps engine, in slightly different environments, trying to decide which of the two (with identical latitude and longitude) to place before the other.

So, the red-bordered circle marker IS correctly displayed for OE/TI-670 Zwölferkopf, but it is (or can be…) obscured by another circle marker at exactly the same location.

EDIT: the same situation of overlapping circles can be seen with the summit combinations DL/AL-046 Ponten == OE/TI-449 Ponten, DL/AL-049 Kuehgundkopf == OE/TI-652 Kühgundkopf, etc.

HTH, Rob

37

Rob,

So, dziękuję bardzo, and if you make the beer a piwo żywieckie, I’ll be doubly pleased :wink:

Anytime! Thanks to sotamaps.org I noticed there is a SOTA summit, SP/BZ-077 within walking distance from Żywiec Brewery, so we can combine the beer degustation with an activation, a win-win scenario for me.

That is, if you were willing to make the trip someday. Otherwise I’ll bring a few bottles with me to Wackersberg the next time I’ll be going that way.

Cheers!
Marcin

38

OK, understood - and good logic there. For me the not yet activated ones are the most attractive to activate irrespective if they are 1 point or 10.

Sorry, you’re right more information would have been easy to supply. The reason Zwolferkopf in the Tirol region (I suspect I have seen another Zwolferkopf in a different region) is beacuse it is a dual-summit i.e. one with two SOTA codes defined. I was ONLY looking at summits in the OE/TI region and hence the DL/AL-166 summit didn’t appear (I was not doing a range this time). So the overlapping rings is not what caused the issue.
Unless you have changed something else I think it must be something in Google mapping because I just went back to make a screenshot and the ring is now correctly displaying. Thanks for updating the key as well by the way.

Ed.

39

sounds tempting! - but I’ll have to wait until I get a new(er) car next year - my 1996 Audi A4 is slowly rusting away!

[quote=“SQ9OZM, post:37, topic:12176”]
Otherwise I’ll bring a few bottles with me to Wackersberg the next time I’ll be going that way.
[/quote]Any time!

Vy 73, rob

40

So, a new enhancement has been introduced into the SMP main page - when one chooses a single region from the top controls, the region is displayed, as before, with a border-rectangle and the summit icons, but now also displays any nearby regions as pale rectangles with dashed borders.

These nearby regions are defined as those having any summits which are within 2 degrees of latitude or longitude of the furthest extents of the current chosen region. So, before this new enhancement, one would have seen something like this:

smp_nearby_regions_01.jpg1760×925 346 KB

where the single chosen range is shown on the map. The new enhancement, as described above, displays any nearby regions as here:

smp_nearby_regions_02.jpg1760×925 340 KB

These nearby regions rectangles react to the mouse passing over them, to show a small infobox displaying the region code and name as here:

smp_nearby_regions_03.jpg1760×925 339 KB

By double-clicking when the mouse is over any nearby region rectangle, that region and its’ summits will be loaded as the new chosen region and again a new set of nearby regions will be displayed around that chosen region.

For those who do not wish to view nearby region rectangles, either sometimes or never, a new “Layers” map control has been introduced at the top right-hand corner of the map area. This can be used to toggle the visibility of nearby region rectangles, as well as the main region rectangle and/or summit icons.

An example of a good reason for switching off the display of nearby regions rectangles - at least temporarily - would be if one were to use the “Measure S2S distance…” control at the bottom left-hand edge of the map area, since the nearby region rectangles can interfere with the mouse being able to register when it’s hovering over a summit icon. That’s not a bug, just an inevitable consequence of a multiplicity of objects sharing screen “Z-space”, plus limitations imposed by the Google maps API layering of objects.

The other SMP map controls at the top of the map have also been updated for better look/feel and functionality.

That’s all for now, folks!

Rob DM1CM

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