plans for eBird reports in TS
Greg
TS still has the eBird report functions in the sighting file list's
'select/generate eBird report' menu item.
That report uses the "PullUIn" format originally defined to interface
National Geographic's Handheld Birds application (written by a company
called "PullUIn") sightings to eBird. Personally, I'm not a counter
and therefore I don't upload anything to eBird. However, Ken
mentioned that there has been a change in the eBird report format.
When I investigated, I did not find a modified PullUIn format, but it
appears that eBird has defined a new report format, which seems simple
enough to implement. However, it got me to thinking that the
generation of sighting reports could be controlled by templates (i.e.,
spreadsheets) written by users. The data driven template approach
seems more sustainable than me trying to maintain code for sighting
report generation.
My suggestion is to see if the old "PullUIn" formatted sighting
reports still are accepted by eBird and, if any are needed, manually
make changes to the generated report before submitting them to eBird.
I probably won't implement the new method of generating reports until
I've finished porting the Tangled application to a couple other device
platforms.
- Greg
- - -
Hi Greg - are your plans for uploading to ebird in the near future?
If so,
I will wait before inputting my latest info to ebird. By the way, the
sighting application works great with my Earthmate Bluelogger GPS that
I use
with my Treo 755P.
Duane Miller
formats: The Checklist format, which is very close if not identical
to what your application produces now, and the Record format which
would be much more useful for people like me that will only have time
to occasionallly upload data which will be very large uploads ranging
over many days and many locations and hundreds of sightings. Here is
the eBird link with the information on formats
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/using-the-ebird-data-import-tool.
I spent some time this afternoon attempting to copy and paste data
from your .csv output file into the Record format, and while it can be
done, it is very time consuming and has to be done seperately for each
site file (I have 5 sites now and expect many more as I continue to
use Tangled) and then combined into a master file before submitting to
eBird - an exercise I just don't have the time to do. Maybe you could
take a quick look and advise if an all-site and date inclusive Record
format is something you would consider for a future update. Thanks,
Duane
Greg
Implementing a record format report seems possible with the user
defined template approach I'm thinking about, and I'll consider it
when I implement the templates. However, I'll be receiving a Nexus
One soon and I won't have the time to implement any new features for
the PalmOS version of Tangled for the next couple of quarters.
Perhaps there's an Excel macro writer in the group who is interested
in writing a macro to translate sighting files into eBird record
format reports.
- Greg
On Mar 17, 4:48 pm, Duane Miller <miller...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greg - I have checked with eBird and found out they have 2 acceptable
> formats: The Checklist format, which is very close if not identical
> to what your application produces now, and the Record format which
> would be much more useful for people like me that will only have time
> to occasionallly upload data which will be very large uploads ranging
> over many days and many locations and hundreds of sightings. Here is
> the eBird link with the information on formatshttp://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/using-the-ebird-data-import-tool.
Greg
Writing free code for one user isn't very appealing. However, if you
can sell the idea of using the currently implemented eBird report
generation in Tangled to 50 eBird reporters, I'll make time to update
the report generation to handle the eBird record format.
- Greg
RFoster
Having used Peck and then the UFG with ebird for the past couple of
years for backyard counts, Christmas bird counts, and long-term
birding trips, I second Duane's request. I found the ability to upload
directly to ebird very, very handy. I hope we can get 50 Tangled users
to request this, since it's a great function, it helps the Cornell
Ornithology Lab collect data, and then the lab automatically generates
notices for rare bird alerts, or for birds in your area that are not
on your life-list.
Rob
Greg
If you have used the eBird report generator implemented in Peck and
UFG, then you are familiar with the eBird report generator implemented
in Tangled (because it is the same): one report per site. Duane's
request is for a report format that allows the sightings from multiple
sites in one report. If enough Tangled users want this alternative
report format, I'll implement it. If you are interested in a report
that allows sightings from multiple sites in one report, switch to
Tangled and request it.
- Greg
Duane Miller
I decided to take some time last week to copy and paste my Tangled
data into eBird Record format. After splitting your date/time column
into two columns it didn't take as long as I thought it would, but an
automated output would still be great. One thing I did note is the
order of input and output for Lat Long (yours is Long Lat in both
cases). I didn't notice this until I had copied and pasted your two
Long Lat columns directly into eBirds Lat Long columns and noticed
later that eBird had all of my sigtings in the Antarctic. I deleted
all of my Tangled/eBird records, recompliled in the correct format and
resubmitted them. Do you (or anyone else) know if there is a hard and
fast rule that Lat Long is preferred over Long Lat?
Duane
On Mar 20, 8:37 am, RFoster <feis...@gmail.com> wrote:
Greg
The 'Lat Lng' order is more common: Google reports 97,800 hits for
'Lat Lng' and 25,300 hits for 'Lng Lat'. My guess is that the 'Lat
Lng' order is especially popular when the perspective is global, and
the 'Lng Lat' order is especially popular when the perspective is a
small local map (because 'Lng Lat' is analogous to 'x, y').
- Greg