[APBeta] AAVSO status

[Paul Rodman]

As several of you have discovered, the AAVSO-related features are not  
working too well. Specifically:

a. Many exceptions occur.
b. Several features are currently non-functional (owing to changes at  
the AAVSO end). e.g. light curve charts and recent data.
c. AAVSO have changed the way they designate variable stars (which  
screws things up in AP)
d. AAVSO have changed the format in which data are submitted, and now  
have a web-form-based method of submission. The e-mail submission  
still works, but the "approved" format has changed.
e. The scripting interface does not, currently, support AAVSO  
observations.
f. AAVSO now distinguishes between visual and CCD/Photometric  
observations.

All this means a lot of work on my side to get it all going properly.  
My current thinking is to disable the stuff that doesn't work for  
V2.0, and work on it for V2.1 (which would probably appear a couple of  
weeks/months after 2.0 is released). On the other hand, if enough  
registered users are using this stuff, perhaps I should bite the  
bullet and spend the time to fix it for 2.0. I will create a poll on  
the Yahoo group and see if I get enough of a response to warrant the  
early fixes.

Any thoughts?

Paul R.