SSA sailplane tracker - too complex

On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:44:00 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

Nope. No search button. Can't post a screenshot, but there is no
"search." Home. Map. Login. Those are the only top nav options. Also,
the "filter" option that renders with Chrome on Windows 7 doesn't show
up on Android. It's obviously not a fully responsive design; the
experience is definitely degraded on mobile platforms. Same with
Silknon Android.

I'm a very casual user of the tracker on a laptop, works reasonably well
now.

The big hangup for me was initially trying to use the SSA version, it
frequently gave a blank window when trying to start it, and once demanded
a security exemption be approved on Firefox. Wasted time trying
different browsers and different OS's.

Big breakthrough was when I dumped the SSA version and just went directly
to glideport.aero. Works so much better.

Case in point, glideport.aero for me has the nice search box that works
as expected, when I go back to the ssa version, it's missing. No
apparent way to log in, not even sure if you log in to that version.
Maybe if I spent hours reading manuals, all this would be clear, but I'm
not going to do that.

Just saw a meme, it said software is like a joke. If you have to explain
it, it's not very good. I'm sure that will offend somebody, but I'm
still scratching my head over what the advantage of the SSA front end is.

-Dave

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 10:45:06 AM UTC-4, David Kinsell wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:44:00 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

Nope. No search button. Can't post a screenshot, but there is no
"search." Home. Map. Login. Those are the only top nav options. Also,
the "filter" option that renders with Chrome on Windows 7 doesn't show
up on Android. It's obviously not a fully responsive design; the
experience is definitely degraded on mobile platforms. Same with
Silknon Android.

I'm a very casual user of the tracker on a laptop, works reasonably well
now.

The big hangup for me was initially trying to use the SSA version, it
frequently gave a blank window when trying to start it, and once demanded
a security exemption be approved on Firefox. Wasted time trying
different browsers and different OS's.

Big breakthrough was when I dumped the SSA version and just went directly
to glideport.aero. Works so much better.

Case in point, glideport.aero for me has the nice search box that works
as expected, when I go back to the ssa version, it's missing. No
apparent way to log in, not even sure if you log in to that version.
Maybe if I spent hours reading manuals, all this would be clear, but I'm
not going to do that.

Just saw a meme, it said software is like a joke. If you have to explain
it, it's not very good. I'm sure that will offend somebody, but I'm
still scratching my head over what the advantage of the SSA front end is.

-Dave

Wow - just tried that, and it's definitely different. For example, there's the search function that wasn't there in the SSA version. Of course, I tried it, and I got some fairly unintuitive results, but I can see where the "direct" version might be better. However, when I tried the "direct" version on my Galaxy running Chrome, I get yet another user experience.

Whatever. Works for me when I want to see what the local gang is up to while I'm stuck at work. Certainly wouldn't win any awards for Information Architecture or Usability, but not the worst application I've ever used.