Am I the only one who thinks displaying code and details might actually be better than mouseover?

Seeing a list of unknown codes just used to irritate me since I would then have to reach for the mouse (I have a browser (Vivaldi) where it's sometimes more efficient to use keyboard) - so often I couldn't be bothered. Also, as mentioned mouseover doesn't really work for mobile.

Furthermore, as a site user it's much easier to pick up the codes when they are displayed than have to try and memorise them!

And to everyone complaining that "they should just use mouseover" I can appreciate that that's probably a lot harder (if not impossible) to implement in existing forum software than a simple text replacement system is. I applaud the devs for their lateral thinking...

PatrickZ80 wrote:

I disagree. Opt-in won't work since nobody will. You said it yourself, you probably won't use it. That ain't good, it should be used.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't want my posts to be cluttered with the new format.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

einsteinboricua wrote:

My

Keep it with the @ character. Let us opt-in. I probably won't even use it, but I would much rather the post not be automatically set to change every instant of an airport code. Imagine a programming thread about SQL and having every instant be changed in reference to San Carlos Airport.

"I use SQL (San Carlos-USA) in my daily work".

At this point, I'd say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". As scbriml said, we've done well without the hover function. Unless it's a very small airport, odds are that most airports are common knowledge and are just one Google away if they aren't.

Let's not forget that the hover function also had its drawbacks, most notably, underlining every instant that was an airport code as well (in the SQL example, every instant of SQL would also be underlined).

I disagree. Opt-in won't work since nobody will. You said it yourself, you probably won't use it. That ain't good, it should be used.

What if you're listing a bunch of airports and you don't use the @? Somebody reading your posts that doesn't know those airports has to look them all up, so you're bugging them because you were too lazy to include the @.

Of course you got to have the possibility to opt-out, therefor I suggested adding the ' in front of it. So if you're talking about structured query language, you're saying 'SQL as that will show up as SQL and not as SQL (San Carlos - USA).

The problem with making someone opt out in order to avoid the messy auto-formatting of codes that aren’t codes is that there are too many potential cases of it being wrong (any three-letter word would need it, even an accidental typo that turns a non-airport code word into one), and unless/until they get this turned into proper alt-text from the current (messy, clunky) setup of just adding an airport text string, it’s going to make a lot of posts unreadable. Especially since they apparently don’t distinguish between capital and lowercase (unless that has changed in the past few hours). If they ever got around to adding airline codes (they say no for now, but who knows what a future update may bring), then any two-letter word will get changed.

‘Not only will ‘it ‘get beyond annoying ‘for a poster ‘to have ‘to ‘add a symbol before every ‘two ‘or three letter word (since there’s no way someone is going to know whether or not a particular character string is an airport code, or one of the secret database of codes that autocorrect into a full name), but you’re going to drive half the members crazy when they can’t figure out why their posts keep changing, despite everyone trying to explain it to them hundreds of times. This is a board where a large portion of the members still can’t figure out simple quoting, despite it being exactly the same as every other web forum in the world, and, really, the language formatting is the same as it was on the old site (which folks still pretend to prefer, even though half the time someone would quote the wrong person back then anyway). Now you expect these same folks to remember to put a symbol in front of every word that they don’t want to convert into an airport name?

hOMSaR wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

einsteinboricua wrote:

My

Keep it with the @ character. Let us opt-in. I probably won't even use it, but I would much rather the post not be automatically set to change every instant of an airport code. Imagine a programming thread about SQL and having every instant be changed in reference to San Carlos Airport.

"I use SQL (San Carlos-USA) in my daily work".

At this point, I'd say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". As scbriml said, we've done well without the hover function. Unless it's a very small airport, odds are that most airports are common knowledge and are just one Google away if they aren't.

Let's not forget that the hover function also had its drawbacks, most notably, underlining every instant that was an airport code as well (in the SQL example, every instant of SQL would also be underlined).

I disagree. Opt-in won't work since nobody will. You said it yourself, you probably won't use it. That ain't good, it should be used.

What if you're listing a bunch of airports and you don't use the @? Somebody reading your posts that doesn't know those airports has to look them all up, so you're bugging them because you were too lazy to include the @.

Of course you got to have the possibility to opt-out, therefor I suggested adding the ' in front of it. So if you're talking about structured query language, you're saying 'SQL as that will show up as SQL and not as SQL (San Carlos - USA).

The problem with making someone opt out in order to avoid the messy auto-formatting of codes that aren’t codes is that there are too many potential cases of it being wrong (any three-letter word would need it, even an accidental typo that turns a non-airport code word into one), and unless/until they get this turned into proper alt-text from the current (messy, clunky) setup of just adding an airport text string, it’s going to make a lot of posts unreadable. Especially since they apparently don’t distinguish between capital and lowercase (unless that has changed in the past few hours). If they ever got around to adding airline codes (they say no for now, but who knows what a future update may bring), then any two-letter word will get changed.

‘Not only will ‘it ‘get beyond annoying ‘for a poster ‘to have ‘to ‘add a symbol before every ‘two ‘or three letter word (since there’s no way someone is going to know whether or not a particular character string is an airport code, or one of the secret database of codes that autocorrect into a full name), but you’re going to drive half the members crazy when they can’t figure out why their posts keep changing, despite everyone trying to explain it to them hundreds of times. This is a board where a large portion of the members still can’t figure out simple quoting, despite it being exactly the same as every other web forum in the world, and, really, the language formatting is the same as it was on the old site (which folks still pretend to prefer, even though half the time someone would quote the wrong person back then anyway). Now you expect these same folks to remember to put a symbol in front of every word that they don’t want to convert into an airport name?

If a system similar to the old one is to be used, then error doesn't actually matter. Sure all unrelated shorthands and short words would get highlighted with mouse tip for airport name or airlines name, but you know from context that those aren't airports so you can simply read on. There's only a little dashed line there if you weren't mouse-overing it

c933103 wrote:

If a system similar to the old one is to be used, then error doesn't actually matter. Sure all unrelated shorthands and short words would get highlighted with mouse tip for airport name or airlines name, but you know from context that those aren't airports so you can simply read on. There's only a little dashed line there if you weren't mouse-overing it

Hence my comment about “unless/until they get this turned into proper alt-text.” The current setup changes the code into a long text string, and earlier comments seemed to imply that making it look like the old site was too hard.

hOMSaR wrote:

The problem with making someone opt out in order to avoid the messy auto-formatting of codes that aren’t codes is that there are too many potential cases of it being wrong (any three-letter word would need it, even an accidental typo that turns a non-airport code word into one), and unless/until they get this turned into proper alt-text from the current (messy, clunky) setup of just adding an airport text string, it’s going to make a lot of posts unreadable. Especially since they apparently don’t distinguish between capital and lowercase (unless that has changed in the past few hours). If they ever got around to adding airline codes (they say no for now, but who knows what a future update may bring), then any two-letter word will get changed.

‘Not only will ‘it ‘get beyond annoying ‘for a poster ‘to have ‘to ‘add a symbol before every ‘two ‘or three letter word (since there’s no way someone is going to know whether or not a particular character string is an airport code, or one of the secret database of codes that autocorrect into a full name), but you’re going to drive half the members crazy when they can’t figure out why their posts keep changing, despite everyone trying to explain it to them hundreds of times. This is a board where a large portion of the members still can’t figure out simple quoting, despite it being exactly the same as every other web forum in the world, and, really, the language formatting is the same as it was on the old site (which folks still pretend to prefer, even though half the time someone would quote the wrong person back then anyway). Now you expect these same folks to remember to put a symbol in front of every word that they don’t want to convert into an airport name?

That is exactly why it is absolutely essential for the detection system to be case-sensitive. That way add is just a word and ADD is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Right now the system is not case sensitive and therefor useless.

Perhaps it's possible to display the added airport information in a smaller font or in upperscript or something like that. That way you can see in one blink of an eye that it's not part of the regular text.

What's the intention regarding IATA city codes? Add them to the database along with the airports that belong to them?
so: @LON contains @LHR @LGW @STN @LTN @LCY and @SEN

I don’t post much but read this forum almost daily. My .02 worth. I worked for an airline for 23.5 yrs so I know pretty much all the major cities and most secondary cities in the USA and Europe. Sometimes I will lookup city codes i don’t know but not that often. I often thought it would be nice if posters would identify the city code the first time they use it in a topic or post and then use the city code later in the post or in follow up. For example:

There are no non stop flights from WAW-Warsaw to LYS-Lyon. Since LOT has a hub there I would have expected them to fly non stop from WAW-LYS.

This forum is read world wide and identifying city codes would be helpful. I appreciate the efforts to make this happen!

The problem often lies in secondary airports in parts of the world you're unfamiliar with. You just see a few characters on the screen but you got no idea where in the world that is.

A mistake that's also made every once in a while is that people mistake it for another airport because they think they recognize it but they're off. For example I remember a post once that a certain airline was going to start flights to CGK (Jakarta, Indonesia). However someone mistook CGK for CGN and thought the airline was going to start flights to Cologne-Bonn, Germany. He just read CGK and somehow in his mind he linked that code to the wrong airport.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

ADD is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Right now the system is not case sensitive and therefor useless.

ADD is also Attention Deficit Disorder.

Imagine talking about this in the Non-Aviation section and having every instance changed to "Addis Ababa-Ethiopia"

No thanks. Let me choose when I'm talking about ADD the airport vs ADD the condition.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

9w748capt wrote:

However for now let's focus on the detection techniques. I think we all agree the @ needs to go as it doesn't work, it should work without. In order to avoid false positives you need to set a good set of detection rules.

I agree, that has to be the key. It can't be opt-in. The old system, did once in a while give a false positive, but not that often. So, detection shouldn't be that hard, and the posts won't get cluttered. Ideally, we would also get a detection rule where the airport description only comes up once in a post (per airport).

Problem with opt-in is that if I used an airport acronym that I believed people would not understand, I might as well use the airport name in full.

-CXfirst

Or you could make it so that, if you finished typing your post and you click the submit button, you get a list of all detected codes with checkboxes in front of them. By default they're all checked, but you can uncheck them if you want.

This would of course mean they're processed when the post is saved instead of loaded, but that's no problem. That was the case with the old forum too. It should also reduce the workload a lot if the codes are processed when the post is saved instead of when the post is loaded.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

...That is exactly why it is absolutely essential for the detection system to be case-sensitive. That way add is just a word and ADD is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Right now the system is not case sensitive and therefor useless.

No, right now "the system" is opt-in, and therefore your objection is moot. The system the way you want it to be would have to be case sensitive. But remember, they are working within a framework which dictates what you can and can't do. If they say case sensitivity is impossible I'm willing to believe it until proven otherwise. Replacing the framework, except perhaps with a hypothetical similar but better one, simply isn't happening unless someone has a few free man-years worth of high quality developers to donate to the cause. Forget the original system, it was unmaintainable and barely functioning at the core.

Perhaps it's possible to display the added airport information in a smaller font or in upperscript or something like that. That way you can see in one blink of an eye that it's not part of the regular text.

If a smaller / different font is possible, I think that would be a good idea.

There may be some hope after all. We're currently in the process of trying something that does work with mouseovers, but no guarantee that it's possible to implement.

Please use IATA codes. Those of us who are veterans to the site are used to them much more than ICAO codes. We always had hover boxes that just popped up under the hyperlinked codes before, and they were much more manageable. Is that an option?

Case sensitive IATA codes are the ones that we are using in our test, and depending on load times etc we’ll see what we include. There are currently 8000+ airports in anets database, and all does not have IATA, but do have ICAO. Best case would be to use both, but as I stated, load times are very important. Also, we are still looking into a solution to enable them for mobile, but that is a hard nut to crack.

But the small airfields that don't have an IATA-code don't really matter, they're not of any significant importance. They got no airline service. The few times such an airfield is being talked about aren't worth including all ICAO-codes into the database.

Do you need the full database of airport codes and names? I have one stashed on a backup drive.

I may even have the PHP code still that identifies the airport codes and comes up with the HTML to make the mouseover work.

Indy wrote:

I may even have the PHP code still that identifies the airport codes and comes up with the HTML to make the mouseover work.

The current solution is javascript and html, and I would like to see if I can integrate a php solution and see if there is a difference in load times. Email me the files at johnkrist @ airliners.net.
Current test shows that a 50 post page with 20 IATA per post codes take 4-5 seconds to load the mouse overs, content load time is not affected though.

Adding codes will slow a.net considerably.
SUGGESTION: Add a link to
http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/code-search.aspx
in the upper right corner of each post, beside the "quote" icon.

WPvsMW wrote:

Adding codes will slow a.net considerably.
SUGGESTION: Add a link to
http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/code-search.aspx
in the upper right corner of each post, beside the "quote" icon.

The old a.net did it and without problem and was not considerably slower. Solutions exist for specialized board.
If it was the forum of the New York Times I would agree that sending user to check for the code would be a solution.
But we are on a aviation focused forum board. It could at least provide a tool to help its readers.

LG777 wrote:

The old a.net did it and without problem and was not considerably slower. Solutions exist for specialized board.

If I understand correctly, this "pilot" is implemented using phpBB's censorship function, which allows moderators to specify a list of words that the forum software looks for and then replaces. The function is intended to catch naughty words, but as we see here can in fact do pretty much anything... except that it has limitations, chief amongst which is that it does the find-and-replace at the time the post is viewed, rather than created, which means that the longer the list of words to look for, the longer it takes to show the post.

The rationale here, from the phpBB developers' end, is that the original text of the post should remain unmodified in case the censorship list changes.

Oh, and - of course - it replaces the display version of the word, so the hover-text is a no-go.

On the other hand, the previous software implemented the code lookup at the time the post was saved and then added the script for the hover-text to the actual post as saved in the database, which is much less heavy on the server. For this reason, and because the look-up trigger conditions had also been specially written, the code list could be longer.

It's also the reason that posts made with the old forum software still show the code hovers even when viewed today, whereas the new codes may or may not show depending on the trigger conditions and actual code list in use at the time you look.

XAM2175 wrote:

On the other hand, the previous software implemented the code lookup at the time the post was saved and then added the script for the hover-text to the actual post as saved in the database, which is much less heavy on the server. For this reason, and because the look-up trigger conditions had also been specially written, the code list could be longer.

It's also the reason that posts made with the old forum software still show the code hovers even when viewed today, whereas the new codes may or may not show depending on the trigger conditions and actual code list in use at the time you look.

From that point of view, I'm in favour of applying the changes upon post saving instead of post loading. That's the way the old forum did it and that's good. Applying it on post loading would only cause the system to be slow as the same coding needs to be done hundreds of times again and again instead of just once.

Downside is that it would not apply for posts from the past 2 years, but you can't have everything.

So basically it's the post save script that needs to be modified. The post load script can then remain untouched.

I take it the old hover approach is technically not possible? Most of the time I know the airport referenced, but sometimes I have to do a google lookup. I only want to do a lookup when I have to. The old way.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

So basically it's the post save script that needs to be modified. The post load script can then remain untouched.

Or, if code can just be embedded in the text in the database, one could have a separate script that is triggered upon a post submission that inserts the code needed to accomplish this in the post. Add to that the style or html/java-scripts needed in the header and no more changes are required. Depending on the implementation one could have both "mouseover" style and a clickable method so surfpads and smartphones can see the extra info after clicking the word.

This separate script could easily be run on the historic posts and update those as well. The tricky part would be to filter out exactly what abbreviations that should have the popups available. It also modifies the basic data, which it not usually my first choice if the same can be accomplished with some post-processing treatment. Since the text in the database is modified, it can be hard to revert this in case some better method is implemented later on.

/Fredrik

First off, I appreciate the effort to provide the code lookups. I have been frustrated when airports codes are used that I am not familiar with. I liked the mouse over function.

I now get that there are technical issues with mouse over that I do not understand, nor do I need to. But maybe a different approach entirely is warranted.

The post reader really only cares when they don't know the code in the post. I personally prefer seeing only codes, unless I don;t know the code. Then I have to look it up. I believe the key is to make looking-up easier. So how about a button on the post to pull up an airport look-up pop-up. You don;t know "JFK", hit a button near the pencil ICON. Popup comes up, enter "JFK" and the airport description comes up. Having the code lookup could also be useful for authoring posts.

This can be expanded to another button to for airline codes, which I think are more frustrating.

I have to figure that this approach would be easier to program than having to pick out character strings in a post.

On a separate comment - could the "Jump To" button be placed at the bottom of the post list (next to the number of pages block). Going to the bottom of the page is also frustrating to me.

How hard is it to just Google something you dontnknow, rather than try all this automated stuff? Just don't bother with this coding at all.

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

How hard is it to just Google something you dontnknow, rather than try all this automated stuff? Just don't bother with this coding at all.

Hard ? Not really as we do it everyday since the switch to phpBB. Boring ? A lot. Switching regularly between airliners.net and Google don't make the use of this forum.
Posters could avoid ICAO or IATA codes for less known airport but well this is a lost debate.

LG777 wrote:

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

How hard is it to just Google something you dontnknow, rather than try all this automated stuff? Just don't bother with this coding at all.

Hard ? Not really as we do it everyday since the switch to phpBB. Boring ? A lot. Switching regularly between airliners.net and Google don't make the use of this forum.
Posters could avoid ICAO or IATA codes for less known airport but well this is a lost debate.

not much of a switch to just open a tab real quick, even on a phone...or even ask your phone "ok google what airport is code LAX" and you don't even have to switch, it'll just tell you. i mean i appreciate the effort, but this seems like a waste to implement.

LG777 wrote:

Posters could avoid ICAO or IATA codes for less known airport but well this is a lost debate.

"less known" is relative to each viewer.

The challenge is server load vs. "individual knowledge of codes". Here's a new idea: click an icon in the "top tray" on a post to reload the post with the code translator active. Generally, most posts in a thread do not present a problem.

Since this obviously is an aviation-related site, the majority of references to the codes will be intentional.

You're going to get some false positives. Big deal. People will survive.

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

How hard is it to just Google something you dontnknow, rather than try all this automated stuff? Just don't bother with this coding at all.

Not hard, just annoying. Like I said before, no problem if it's just one or two but it becomes a problem if it's a list of thirty or fourty codes. Such posts happen and you don't want to look them all up. Not because it's hard, but because it's a lot of work to Google 40 codes one by one. By the time you've looked up the last, you've forgotten what the first was.

IMO, learning airport and airline codes is part of paying your dues in the biz.

That said, the least intrusive solution would be a Kindle-type feature. In a Kindle book, double click on the word and the definition pops up... in a.net, double click on the code and the airline or airport pops up.

How about just having a quick code decipher link?

WPvsMW wrote:

IMO, learning airport and airline codes is part of paying your dues in the biz.

That said, the least intrusive solution would be a Kindle-type feature. In a Kindle book, double click on the word and the definition pops up... in a.net, double click on the code and the airline or airport pops up.

I think all readers of Anet try to learn airport codes all the time, adding "odd" ones to their respective memory lists all the time. That's exactly where automation comes in, making that information easily available so you _can_ learn them. I have coded similar solutions in the past and it won't be much of a burden on either the browser or the server even with thousands of hover-style popups. I think the trick for the Anet crew is to find a solution that won't mess things up and still be usable for both surfpads and computers with a mouse (you can't use "hover", "mouseover" or "title" codes on surfpads).

I have also done a double-click Kindle-style activation in the past. The thing is that in HTML, that's not (as far as I know) a pre-defined action, so one has to code the first click and then, as a separate action, the next click (only available after clicking once on the element/text/image/button/whatever), so that approach is certainly doable. It will, however, be easier to do it with a one-click.

/Fredrik

If I can add my 2 cents, I would go with the « underline airport code in capital » solution. It’s not too obstructing and people are familiar enough with the underline as hyperlink to discover the feature. The on,y improvement I would like to see is that the implementation should be toux devices friendly. It was not working well on iPhone/iPad.

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

LG777 wrote:

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

How hard is it to just Google something you dontnknow, rather than try all this automated stuff? Just don't bother with this coding at all.

Hard ? Not really as we do it everyday since the switch to phpBB. Boring ? A lot. Switching regularly between airliners.net and Google don't make the use of this forum.
Posters could avoid ICAO or IATA codes for less known airport but well this is a lost debate.

not much of a switch to just open a tab real quick, even on a phone...or even ask your phone "ok google what airport is code LAX" and you don't even have to switch, it'll just tell you. i mean i appreciate the effort, but this seems like a waste to implement.

As I already mentioned at the top of page 2, and as LG777 said, having to do this every time you see a code you don't know - or worse, a whole *list* of codes you don't know - is really tedious.

Tedious enough that I don't bother unless I suspect/guess that it might be a location that I might be interested in.

Edit: and I see PatrickZ80 and others feel the same...

All in-line codes removed. Trying to find a different solution.

The goal is to implement hover for mobile using touch events. While google is great, it’s really tedious if looking at a topic like this where in-line also would be almost unreadable:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1392863

I have received code examples for mouse events from Indy and Fredrik (thanks guys) and I am going through them right now.

airkas1 wrote:

All in-line codes removed. Trying to find a different solution.

Thank you for your efforts.