Live updates to kml files?

[ewb...@hbci.com]

Hi,

First of all, thanks for providing such a great website! 

Our club in Winona, MN is providing support for a bike tour on Sept 16.  We are going to put aprs.fi, along with the route map (a kml file) on a big screen at ride headquarters, so everyone can see where the sag wagons, etc., are.  There will be a sweep vehicle following the last riders.  We will be tracking that vehicle, so we will know where it is, but I thought it would be nice if we could change the kml file to show portions of the route official closed.  I've figured out how to modify the kml file and plan to set up several files ahead of time that show the progression of segments closed in a different color.  I can probably have an operator at the computer manually pick from one of the files, but it would nicer if we could do that on the server where the kml files will be, so that if there are several computers displaying it (I know we will have at least two), they would update automatically.  I've just started playing with this, but the file seems to be cached somewhere.  Just changing the file itself, or even refreshing the page doesn't seem to refetch it.  Is there some way to force that on a periodic basis?

Thanks in advance for the help!

73,

Erik, WB0NIU

 

[Heikki Hannikainen]

Hi,

aprs.fi does not provide a method to refresh KML files. On the other hand,
KML itself does provide a method to refresh another KML file at an
interval. This works at least on the Google Earth application. With some
luck, it might work for Google Maps too, which aprs.fi uses.

See <Link> -> viewRefreshMode, viewRefreshTime, refreshMode

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- Hessu

[ewb...@hbci.com]

Hi Hessu,
Thanks for the info so far.  The link you tried to give me didn't paste right.  I did some searching, but wasn't able to come up with the correct way to do it.  If you could repost that link I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
Erik

[Heikki Hannikainen]

Hi,

I didn't provide any specific link at all, I was just referring to the
<Link> KML tag that you'd need to use. Look up the KML specification,
section on the <Link> tag, then subtags <viewRefreshMode>,
<viewRefreshTime>, <refreshMode>.

[Shawn Stoddard]

It's called a network link. At least in Google Earth it causes the KML file to be reloaded on an interval so that changes show up. I've used it for something similar to what you want. However I have never tried it with straight google maps. 

[ewb...@hbci.com]

Oh, Duh! I get it now. Thanks everyone,, I'll be working on it some
more in the next few days. I'll report back.