One decision that would need to be made is whether you actually want it shown on a calendar or show it as a list (or both). The calendar can be nice for near-term launches but quickly becomes unwieldy as you go farther out (you wind up with 10 launches listed next April 1 for all the "April 2018" and "Q2 2018" launches.
Quote from: gongora on 09/26/2017 01:41 pmOne decision that would need to be made is whether you actually want it shown on a calendar or show it as a list (or both). The calendar can be nice for near-term launches but quickly becomes unwieldy as you go farther out (you wind up with 10 launches listed next April 1 for all the "April 2018" and "Q2 2018" launches.Personally I like a list better for these kinds of events. Having a calendar (per month) with only a couple of entries is a waste of screen space and not easy to read imo.
If we did a list would it be in HTML instead of SMF? HTML would greatly increase the formatting flexibility.
I have been pondering on a dedicated page here showing an airport/train station display board type timetable for every spaceflight related event. The biggest part would be the "Departures" sections for all launches - Date and time (with automatic conversion to your local time by sensing your computer settings; if a launch has a defined window, the start of window is listed), LSPs in place of airlines, payloads and rocket variant in place of flight number, planned orbit in place of destinations, launch site in place of gate number, and of course a status section (*) complete with red/yellow/green lights. This should work with every launch, unless someone like to sneak onto the runway (you know which nation always like to do this )(*) Departed 22:55/ Scrubbed/ Expected 18:50/ Delayed/ Please contact staff etc.You may also add an "Arrivals" section for everything coming back to Earth, from ISS crews to Dragons to asteroid sample deliveries; an "Arrival to other stops" section for ISS arrivals to Mars landings; a "Hopping flights" section for sub-orbital flights; and maybe an "Events" section for everything from EVAs to Mr. Musk's next talk. I can help with the updating when this page is up.
How about a small 'Next 5 launches' list, worldwide by default, with an inline dropdown to filter by a specific country or launch site?
I hope some kind of automatic time zone detection function can be added such that it will show the launch time in my own time zone.
Yes, the idea is to create a new 'event schedule' so don't think of the limits in SMF, just discuss what we want in it (which data / format) and how we want it to appear on the site
Ideally I want a list AND a calendar that are driven by some underlying database so they stay in synch.I want to filter by the following: (meaning the underlying data source should have all this data)... and I want to be able to filter on more than one thing at a time so I can slice and dice as I like.- country of launch- country of booster and S2 return- country of customer- country of launch provider- major launch sites (so show me only Vandy or only Plesetsk (sp) )- type of launch (sun sync, geo, leo, beo, other)- launch vehicle type (so show me only Atlas launches and then let me narrow to just 401)- expendable vs reusable- land vs sea launch- if there are vehicle serial/sequence numbers, include them.- If the vehicle was a reused vehicle, give a link to the most recent past launch for that vehicle component that displays in calendar or list view (this may be different for the two side boosters of an FH, or for the S2 of a (future) launcher than the center or only S1)For past launches- launch success/failure- booster, S2 recovery success/failure- fairing recovery success/failure- Is the payload still active?I also want to perform statistical analysis... how many launches from Plesetsk were failures? How many boosters were recovered as a percentage of attempts for Vandy launches vs Kwajalien, etc? Each launch should have links that take me to the specific discussion/update threads if they exist as well as links to the vehicle threads if it/they exists (to the latest one if there are more than one) and to the launch provider and site threads if they exist.The maintenance mechanism should not depend on a single person, and should allow for reporting issues (linked to wrong launch site, for example) easilyThat's a giant list but thrown out there to get people thinking... no way can we actually do all this I expect.
With an underlying queryable database. Not just a forum post.(as I told someone offline "never ask an architect for requirements" ... unless you want pie in the sky)
Ideally I want a list AND a calendar that are driven by some underlying database so they stay in synch....That's a giant list but thrown out there to get people thinking... no way can we actually do all this I expect.