Virtual Airlines Manager

https://imgur.com/JASgTuS

Just got back to the man cave after some appointments.  The link above shows my current homepage and a 20% progress on a long haul from, Male up to Stansed... 11:52 oh yeah.    I am getting a warm 'n fuzzy about where this Map mod might take me by the time I move from beta to alpha.    This is just my wish... how I'd want my VA homepage to look... just the active flights on a Map like Flightradar24 and projectFLY... the track log to me was distracting after carefully studying Flightradar24's and projectFLY's Map renders.  So I...

• yanked the TRACK LOG... kept thinking about having to scroll the page if a lot of pilots were flying at the same time... that'll push the Map further down the page... didn't want to scroll
• am tossing coins about a wider DIV that'll allow me to either keep the map at is's current size AND give me some realestate over on the left so I can kick that Popup further left AND separate it from the Map
• can now focus on the Map and Popup refresh in sync
• hopefully shut down the page refresh altogether... ain't nothing but a static page with that track log now departed
• answer more phone calls and drink more coffee
• can give up making pictures in exchange for writing code.  What the what?

Thanks again to you guys who lent 'direction'. Greatly appreciated for shizzle,

Cheers,

Keith

The TAXI LIGHTS problem is a well-known problem. It happens with many different planes.  That info is in the User Manual.

About Network Indicators as you call it
===========================
a) VATSIM and IVAO maintain their separate network of maybe 15 - 20 Servers Worldwide
b) VATSPY and other utilities like it have to connect to and read the network data from the servers to get positions and to draw the multiple aircraft icons
c) VAM and maybe other management systems MAY have features where a pilot can select VATSIM or IVAO... and cute lil logos show up somewhere... wherever...
d) having a logo show up somewhere does NOT mean you're connected to the network. It just means you selected a network somewhere

Now...   if you're looking for a solution to  show a cute VATSIM or IVAO logo... wherever?  That's not what I was referring to... and  YES... what you want can be done... Why?  Because YOU think it looks great.

What I was talking about is... VAM or SIMACARS does NOT access the networks... neither VATSIM nor IVAO.   Therefore there is NO validation that a live flight is active on any network.  You can prove that yourself by starting a flight connected to either VATSIM or IVAO...  logging OFF VATSIM or IVAO after 10-15 minutes...  Nothing changes with SIMACARS or the Live Flights Map.

It's just "Lipstick on a Pig... hoping the Pig would somehow look like the cute LabraDoodle who draws".


Cheers,

Keith

I managed to get a short flight going from FAOR-FQBR - by directly setting it up in SIMACARS.  I edited SIMACARS .DB3 Airports table and applied the same correction of FAJS/FAOR as I did preciously to VAM Airports table. SIMACARS had no problem recognizing FAOR.  That's seems to have worked.

Going back to VAM and the Map display? Everything works after I removed that comment "//" out from... what is it... line #123?

No matter what other achievements at modding this Map functionality... we're still gonna need the Page Refresh cause the live flights LOG entry sits on the STATIC page and we have the various stages of the flight from TAXI, CLIMB, etc which won't ger updated if the page isn't refreshed... "Bummer!"

The MouseClick() and the MouseOver() functions like expected.

My only other lack of reporting has to do with NOT having a few guys up and flying at this time.  Anyway... the path is laid out.

Thank you very much guys for all of your inputs and assists with the thought process.   Should I come up with a small nugget? I'll report back.


Good nite,

Keith

Ok! Looking at the .PHP script...

a) on MY line #123 it originally had a COMMENT OUT "//" on the line...
           var var_location = new google.maps.LatLng(<?php echo $datos[0][0]["latitude"]; ?>,<?php echo $datos[0][0]["longitude"];
I've removed the COMMENT OUT as shown above... Saved and returned to VAM.  No apparent damage done!  Then again.. "Ain't nobody flying..." so no map is displayed.

b) anyway, at that point... the SCRIPT would have dropped OUT of the "WHILE" construct... then continue to execute (essentially) the update to the Map... only to return to the WHILE loop whereby the NEXT ELEMENT in the array would be parsed - the next live flight - and so on... until no more ARRAY elements and STOP.  Right?


Unfortunately... because of interruptions here in the Man Cave... I am unable to do a flight... far more get two pilots up in the air to test if this is a correct attempt on a fix.... or whether I'll need the demolition crew.

QUESTION:  That line # 123 in MY code... with the comment OUT?  Was that also your situation on your end?   If, not true... then I may have inadvertently commented out that line somewhere along my poking around. Can you confirm that please?  Meaning... I need to document EVERYTHING I try so that I can put the pieces back together... My bad!

Thank you very much...

Keith

True. But may I suggest that you use your hosting provider's cPanel to access the database and run a SQL query for the ICAO or range of ICAOs then noting the ID of the row you're looking for... go back to the BROWSE feature and increase the row count to 500... giving you a page load of 500 rows... sort by ASC and then paging by groups of 500 reduces the stress and agony of even dealing with the Airports table?  You're not able to EDIT any of the queried results as the results are just a VIEW... or I haven't dug deeper into that. Maybe there is or are other ways to achieve the same result?

Waiting for the implementation of your request as an update may... well... Ahhh... just try the above and see if it helps you out.  LOL

Cheers,

Keith

FAJS ICAO identifier was replaced by FAOR ICAO identifier years back.

Flying into FAOR a few months ago generated a PENALTY of NOT LANDING AT THE CORRECT AIRPORT.   Looking through the airports table I realized that FAOR (Correct ICAO ID) had a completely wrong airport name and possibly incorrect lat/lon.   Further checking on FAJS showed a correct airport name.  So, I deleted the problem causing FAOR row from the table then replaced the incorrect IACO of FAJS with FAOR.

I've just completed a rotation from EDDF - FAOR... landed at FAOR... shut down the MD11 at the gate... filed the pirep... got the validation email then viewed the ACARS report only to find a PENALTY for landing at the NOT CORRECT AIRPORT.

The Map shows the MD11 sitting at FAOR (Correct)... The MD11 has been relocated to FAOR and I'm at the Hilton off the Airport relaxing in Johannesburg.

I'm not that smart to make this shiznt up.  Time for a Corona with a lime wedge.

Cheers,

Keith

Timothee.

Many thanks for that response.   You've helped shine the light so to speak.  Thanks.

Now the latter part of your response is what intrigues me... Yeah...   Understanding your settings 0,0 to display the World is a great 'fix'.   That nugget introduces the NEXT item you pointed out - what to do when there are multiple live flights?

I'm thinking...

a) the live flights table will THEN have multiple rows (really) where each row will represent a single active CALLSIGN.  Right?
b) working with that thought process... being able to query the live flights table will produce tracking for each and every live CALLSIGN?
c) the LAT/LON column values can then be passed to the VARIABLES?
d) via a code modification and a loop... the now updated variables can be pushed to the Maps API and "Viola!"  We're done.   Global moving map tracking for the entire VA?

I'm presently looking at "vam_live_flights_map.php" code... and the answer to the riddle has to lie in the multiple live VA flights (CALLSIGNS) within the table to learn the LAT/LON of each (doesn't matter how many) flight and PASS these individual positions to the Map?

Please be assured... There is no argument intended here... just recognition that IF world-renowned Flightradar24® and projectFLY® can display multiple active planes (live flights) on a Google Map... and we're pleased with looking a real time progress of planes on either of those two engines, then my belief (and I've believed worse things in my life before... LOL) is the "PRIZE" is within the code... and tweaking and such...

Again... Many many thanks for your response Timothee.  I will dig deeper and perhaps pull out the last two hairs on my bald head getting to a fix.   The way I see it... If Flightradar24® and projectFLY® can do this thing? VAM... sure as h@#> can do it too.   LOL

As always,

Cheers,

Keith


EDITED:  In my iten d) above... Let me use the term DISPLAY instead of TRACKING... because to actualy TRACK any one of multiple active flights may yet involve more coding tweaks... but code is code and we are free to think... LOL

Oh! And then there is that page refresh ugly business to deal with too.  But that may be unavoidable because the underlying (and updated) Map still has to be re-drawn after each update... Right....

FURTHER EDITS:

line#28 reads

$sql_map = "select plane_type,ias,flight_id,u.gvauser_id as gvauser_id,u.callsign as callsign,u.name as name,gs,altitude,surname,departure,arrival,latitude,longitude,flight_status,heading,perc_completed,
            pending_nm, a1.latitude_deg as dep_lat, a1.longitude_deg as dep_lon , a2.latitude_deg as arr_lat, a2.longitude_deg as arr_lon , network
            from vam_live_flights lf, gvausers u , airports a1, airports a2 where u.gvauser_id=lf.gvauser_id and lf.departure=a1.ident and lf.arrival=a2.ident";

If you notice the WHERE clause... this portion of the clause LINKS (( u.gvauser_id=lf.gvauser_id )) the 'flying' PILOT/CALLSIGN with the LIVE FLIGHTS PILOT/CALLSIGN... Maybe this could be a factor when dealing with multiple live flights?   I gotta try an edit here.

line#122 I see where you've modded the "0,0"... Cool

I'm gonna leave my line#122 alone for the moment and concentrate on the query.

Thanks

Ok. The topic says it all.  And I've looked at VAM code and recognize where this situation is coded.   Here is a simple snippet I copied off Google's KB relevant to how the Map operates...

SAMPLE JS
=======
{
  var uluru = {lat: -25.344, lng: 131.036};

  var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map'), {
    zoom: 4,
    center: uluru
  });

}
=======
END SNIPPET

Clearly center: uluru contains the instruction CENTER and the POSITION where to center  "uluru' - the variable - is hard coded in this example.  It's the same construct as I see in VAM's code.... except that the lat/lon to center on is DEPARTURE ICAO.

However.. as I look at the FLIGHTS DATA Tab of SIMACARS - during a flight - LAT and LON are constantly updating. The new thought is...

a) Is it possible to capture LAT/LON from SIMACARS during a flight and use that constantly updating lat/lon data to drive the map and display the plane icon?
b) Is the databse TABLE "vam_track" an adequate source of CONSTANTLY UPDATING LAT/LON?
c) In my VAM... that table contains 31,433 records as of a few minutes ago... is this table updated at pre-determined intervals?
d) Is there anyone out there that can shed some light  on what's happening on the backend?

Using a comparison of projectFLY's live flights map... its functionality is 100% what I'd like to achieve for myself and the good of ALL VAM users.  Can I get a witness???

Cheers,

Keith


UPDATE:

After watching the latitude and longitude columns in VAM_LIVE_FLIGHTS table over a 30 minute spread, these two columns are being updated by SIMACARS. So, a focused direction now exists...

Cheers,

Keith