[APBeta] Plan Creation Wizard

[Michael Portuesi]

Okay, I'll nominate something for item (4) - "Your Suggestion Here".

This would be to use a database as in approach (3), but rather than  
you doing all the work to maintain the database, you provide a feature  
in the program to allow users to vote for/rate interesting and/or  
notable objects.  Perhaps this could be part of the observation  
logging tab.

User ratings would get sent back to AstroPlanner headquarters, which  
would then be used to build the notable object database.

This works a bit like the user ratings found on many websites, such as  
Amazon.com.

m.

On Aug 10, 2008, at 10:54 AM, Paul Rodman wrote:

> Folks,
>
> Your views greatly appreciated.
>
> One feature of AP V2 that's past it's use-by data is the Plan  
> Creation Wizard, because:
>
> a. It's not really a "wizard" as such.
> b. It's very restrictive (i.e. you have to supply a lot of  
> irritating detail, and either get back too few, or two many hits.
> c. It's very slow.
>
> Since it's the kind of feature that new users would use, it needs to  
> be a lot better.
>
> Making the interface better, more "wizard-like", and less cluttered,  
> I can manage. Problem (c) is the main one. What I'm struggling with  
> is the actually algorithms.
>
> I can take three approaches (the first of which is the currently- 
> used one):
>
> 1. Search all (or selected) catalogues for objects that satisfy  
> carefully (sic) crafted rules (e.g. any galaxies that are brighter  
> than mag A, and bigger than B).
>
> 2. Have a separate database of objects that are indexed by expertise  
> level, object type, etc. Possibly pointing to the actual catalogue  
> entries. The database would be created beforehand by running a  
> special app on the entire catalogue set.
>
> 3. Create a database of objects manually, based on astronomy  
> literature, S&T articles, NSOG data, user input, etc. This database  
> could be updated on-line as new information becomes available.
>
> and possibly
>
> 4. Your suggestion here.
>
> All of the above (apart from 4) have advantages and disadvantages:
>
> 1. Advantage: a. I don't have to update any databases or otherwise  
> keep things up-to-date.
>   Advantage: b. There's pretty much every object you could wish for  
> in the existing catalogues. Adding extra catalogues only improves  
> things.
>   Advantage: c. Incentive to register and get more catalogues.
>
>   Disadvantage: a. The searching can take a long time (although  
> there are various things I can do to alleviate the problem).
>   Disadvantage: b. False positives, false negatives can occur, if  
> there are bogus catalogue entries (e.g. galaxies with Mag=0).  
> Duplicates.
>
> 2. Advantage: a. Fast lookup.
>   Advantage: b. Very little maintenance required by me.
>   Advantage: c. Same as c above.
>
>   Disadvantage: a. If catalogues get changed or added, the database  
> will need refreshing. This could be done on-line, possibly when in  
> the Cat Manager.
>   Disadvantage: b. See disadvantage b above.
>   Disadvantage: c. The database could be quite big.
>
> 3. Advantage: a. High quality object choices.
>   Advantage: b. Very fast lookups.
>
>   Disadvantage: a. LOTS of work required by me (I could start by  
> sucking all user-contributed plan objects, I guess).
>   Disadvantage: b. A limited selection of objects, unless  
> Disadvantage (a) isn't a problem.
>   Disadvantage: c. A less objective selection of objects. Some good/ 
> popular ones might be missed.
>
> What are your views, O Valued Testers?
>
> Paul R.
>
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