The website and forum will be intermittently unavailable while we're making some security updates.
File uploads to the download hangar are also disabled until further notice.

Feedback, please

Essential flight simulator tools, by Martin Gossmann
http://www.owlsnest.eu
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

Good morning.

Several of my reference pages have become way too large (military aircraft = 1009 entries, AI = 2921 entries, MAIW = 268 entries) to handle them as flat files any further. If you have a low speed internet connection or use a not-so-powerful mobile device this is really killing the performance. Therefore I am moving the content to SQL (which I have avoided until now because it also means that I need to redo all the tools I use to generate the content).

This is how things will look in future - the example being the MAIW page (naturally :-)):

It is still work in progress (grid font size is wrong, the icons for obsolete packages without download are not yet different etc.), but you will see the concept.

How do you like it?
Last edited by gsnde on 26 Nov 2014, 20:27, edited 1 time in total.
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
User avatar
Joecoastie
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 860
Joined: 30 Jan 2007, 17:46
Version: P3D
Location: 8.2mi/077 radial of GVE

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Joecoastie »

Looks good to me. I feel for you. I went through 'flat file to SQL' transition years ago at work. As I remember it took quite a bit to get my head around it.
Service to my Country 9/61 - 2/03
US Navy - HS-3, VX-1, HS-7 (USS Intrepid, USS Wasp, USS Yorktown)
Va National Guard - 229th Cbt Avn Co
US Coast Guard - E City CGAS, CGC Morro Bay, RTC Yorktown
NOAA - Co-op Observer 1983 - present
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

Thank you very much for the feedback, Joe.

The grid is a commercial product I bought for this purpose and it is extremely easy to use. I am comfortable with SQL, too. What I feared was how to maintain the data. Until now I generate the flat file html code out of Excel, and copy it into the web.

I did not want to add any more tasks to it, like running sql imports on a regular base. Now I finally figured out that there is an SQL Excel Addon and also an SQL-ODBC driver that I can use to update the SQL tables directly.
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
User avatar
Firebird
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 12111
Joined: 11 Aug 2006, 21:04
Version: FS9
Location: EGLL

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Firebird »

Martin,
I like the look of it and I know that it's a work in progress so I know that it currently doesn't work reliably so I won't comment on that.
Steve
_______________________________________________________
Image
Quid Si Coelum Ruat
_______________________________________________________
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

Please do comment, Steve. It helps me to find things not working and was my reason for asking.
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

I have fixed all that I am aware of. Some more comments would be appreciated.

Visit Page...

Thanks again, the page is live.
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
ronniegj

Re: Feedback, please

Post by ronniegj »

This is what I see: Couldn't execute query. Table 'c227owlsnest_ai.maiw' doesn't exist - select distinct country as k, country as v from maiw order by country .... Beyond that I just want to say that I continue to be amazed that you do this valuable work for the community. I'm sure it is a great deal of work, and very time consuming. High praise to you for all you do. Ron
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

I was messing around a bit, Ronnie :-)

It should work now, and also the AI Reference is updated.

Can you confirm?
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
User avatar
Stewart Pearson
MAIW Staff
MAIW Staff
Posts: 3179
Joined: 11 Aug 2006, 22:11
Version: FS9
Location: Rhynd, Perthshire, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Stewart Pearson »

Hi Martin,

AI reference page working okay, but I am also receiving the "Couldn't execute query" on the other one.
Stew

"There is an art … to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
ronniegj

Re: Feedback, please

Post by ronniegj »

Martin - the AI Reference link fine and looks fine once there, however, the other link is as before. Ron
User avatar
Firebird
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 12111
Joined: 11 Aug 2006, 21:04
Version: FS9
Location: EGLL

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Firebird »

Martin,
Will do, once the 'Couldn't execute query. Table 'c227owlsnest_ai.maiw' doesn't exist - select distinct country as k, country as v from maiw order by country' error is resolved. I will check to see if your latest work has already fixed the issue I happened to test upon.
Steve
_______________________________________________________
Image
Quid Si Coelum Ruat
_______________________________________________________
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

I have fixed the query error.
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
User avatar
Stewart Pearson
MAIW Staff
MAIW Staff
Posts: 3179
Joined: 11 Aug 2006, 22:11
Version: FS9
Location: Rhynd, Perthshire, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Stewart Pearson »

gsnde wrote:I have fixed the query error.
You certainly have. Looks great and works great.

Thanks a lot Martin, much appreciated.
Stew

"There is an art … to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
ronniegj

Re: Feedback, please

Post by ronniegj »

Looks good and works good for me as well. Thanks again Martin. Ron
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

Is somebody still using IE8? I have reason to believe that the grid does not show in IE8.

And while we are at it - is anyone using IE7 or IE9 and can tell me if it works or not?

Thanks a lot!
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
Don H
First Lieutenant
First Lieutenant
Posts: 113
Joined: 12 Aug 2006, 02:31
Version: P3D
Location: Tama, Iowa, USA

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Don H »

Martin,
I haven't been in in awhile, so am behind in checking. The new pages seem to be working fine, at least the ones I checked. IE11

On the missing AI Vote page, I was wondering if it would be possible to make it possible to vote for more than one aircraft at a time. There are so many on the list, it takes a long time just to vote for a half dozen aircraft. I think you would get many more honest votes for much wanted aircraft that way. To control vote stacking, only allow one vote per day, per aircraft. Just a suggestion.
Don H
User avatar
Joecoastie
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 860
Joined: 30 Jan 2007, 17:46
Version: P3D
Location: 8.2mi/077 radial of GVE

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Joecoastie »

I've searched around on the new page a bit and all seem to work fine. Firefox 33.1
Service to my Country 9/61 - 2/03
US Navy - HS-3, VX-1, HS-7 (USS Intrepid, USS Wasp, USS Yorktown)
Va National Guard - 229th Cbt Avn Co
US Coast Guard - E City CGAS, CGC Morro Bay, RTC Yorktown
NOAA - Co-op Observer 1983 - present
User avatar
gsnde
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 4380
Joined: 05 Apr 2007, 08:13
Version: P3D
Location: South-West Germany
Contact:

Re: Feedback, please

Post by gsnde »

Don H wrote:Martin,
I haven't been in in awhile, so am behind in checking. The new pages seem to be working fine, at least the ones I checked. IE11

On the missing AI Vote page, I was wondering if it would be possible to make it possible to vote for more than one aircraft at a time. There are so many on the list, it takes a long time just to vote for a half dozen aircraft. I think you would get many more honest votes for much wanted aircraft that way. To control vote stacking, only allow one vote per day, per aircraft. Just a suggestion.
Hi Don,

The replacement of the voting script with something more suitable is on my list for quiet some time. It is also a pain to maintain (changing to 'in developent' and 'now available').
After completion of the flatfile2sql task I will start looking for a replacement.
Cheers,
Martin
________________________________________
The Owl's Nest * Military Aircraft Reference * ICAO Reference * Distance Calculator * MAIW, Military AI & UKMil Reference
User avatar
bismarck
MAIW Developer
MAIW Developer
Posts: 2370
Joined: 04 Jan 2007, 14:35
Version: FS9
Location: Milan,Italy

Re: Feedback, please

Post by bismarck »

Martin, not working with IE8.
Ok with Google Chrome.

Giorgio

P.S.
Italian Air Force Tornado V.1.0 can be deleted from the list :wink:
Image
User avatar
Firebird
MAIW Admin
MAIW Admin
Posts: 12111
Joined: 11 Aug 2006, 21:04
Version: FS9
Location: EGLL

Re: Feedback, please

Post by Firebird »

OK Martin, I am using Firefox latest.

In the Aircraft box I typed 'f-4'
The result I got was 1 of 4 pages totalling 99 results the top one was 267 the 27th Stormo.
I then added an 'e' to make 'f-4e' and got 2 responses, 244 and 190.

I then removed the 'e' again to leave 'f-4'. This produced 6 responses, which I believe to be correct.
I then removed the 'f-4' and all 268 responses returned.

I then typed in 'f-4' and I got a total of 64 responses over 3 pages with 262 being the top one.

It seems that currently it can be a bit flaky under certain conditions. I swear that this was the first test I tried.

The only other info I think maybe relevant is that I never pressed enter after adding or removing the search characters, but as it starts updating immediately I don't think it should be necessary.
Are you able to reproduce?
Steve
_______________________________________________________
Image
Quid Si Coelum Ruat
_______________________________________________________
Post Reply