New Airports and Offline Play

[Casper52250]

I'm sort of new here, and not (yet, anyway) a programming type, so a couple of questions:

It looks like there's a lot of work going on with the game, so are you guys taking requests for new airports? If not, is it hard to code a new airport (assuming it's not a big hub)? I'd like to see my home airport on the game, but I don't want to toss on the straw that breaks your backs.

Next, is there a way that the game could be played offline, or is it just based on the webpage itself? Is this something that can be done, or would this be a lot of work down a blind corridor?

I love the game, and I'm glad to see that there is work going into it to make it even better. If there's something a noob can do to help you guys out, let me know!

[Fechulo]

@Casper52250 Hey, I'm glad you're enjoying the game!

The difficulty of adding a new airport depends mostly on the airport and the country it is in. Some airports have procedures, which can't be easily programmed into the game. Sometimes, the government of a country decides not to share any information on the airport which can make the process harder. Most international hubs are actually quite easy to program, they just take longer to make due to their size.

If you want, I can take a look at your home airport and tell you whether or not it's possible to add it to the game. If it is, I'd be more than willing to work on it.

There's currently no offline/desktop version of the game and I don't think there will be one any time soon. There's a lot of stuff that's being worked on at the moment and an offline version wouldn't be the number one priority. Then again, I'm not a coder, so I could be wrong.

If there's anything you'd like to know, I'll do my best to give you an answer (As long as I know what the answer is 😄)

[eliuuk]

Hello!

We do kindly accept requests for airports. All my airports are requested by a friend of mine who I introduced to the game, so it's normal for me. TJSJ in #642 by @Fechulo was requested by @Exfil was one of the most recent requests. If you want to request one, feel free to open up a separate issue for it!

Playing offline
I have not tried playing offline, so if this doesn't work, please tell me!

The game should be able to be played offline if you have TCPIP installed. This requires a third party application, such as XAMPP and WampServer. Any program with Apache should be fine.

Download the code for this game here then extract it. If you're using XAMPP, move your folder to any location you wish and point XAMPP at it.

Pointing XAMPP
To point XAMPP at your game, open up the application and click 'Config' for for the row which says 'Apache'. Select the first option, 'Apache (httpd.conf)'.
Inside the document, find 'DocumentRoot'. After DocumentRoot, inside the two marks, paste the path to your folder in which the game is located. Once you've done that, do it for the line below, after where it says 'Directory'. Save the document and close it, you should be clear of any errors after that. In the application, press 'Start'. Then, you should be able to play on your browser through localhost.

Configuring WampServer
WampServer is slightly easier.

Go to the location where you installed WampServer. This should be called 'wampxx', xx being the 2 operating system digits. Inside that folder, go to www and paste your extracted folder in there. Start up WampServer. It should appear in your quick start area, with a W. Click the W and choose 'Localhost'. The game should now be under the Your Projects section.

Here's 2 methods that I've found for playing the game locally, and should work offline. If you've got any problems, feel free to ask!

In regards to how you can help us, help us find bugs. Play the game, report any issues to us and we'll fix 'em.

[Casper52250]

@Fechulo My home airport is Providence, Rhode Island (KPVD). It's not that big, but because of the proximity to Boston (KBOS), I'm not sure that the airspace is too simple, either. That being said, I'd imagine that most or all of the information you would need is public. Of course, no rush, and if there's a way I can help with that process, let me know; @indianbhaji suggested I create a separate issue for the new airport, so I'll probably do that.

I'll try XAMPP for local play (I'm on a Mac) and see how that goes.

Thank you guys for your help. I'll keep playing the game, but I think I'll learn a little more about ATC procedures before I start calling out issues!

[Casper52250]

@indianbhaji Thanks for getting on KPVD so quickly!

I tried getting XAMPP to work for a while, but I am not accustomed to tinkering around in config files, et al. That didn't end up working after a couple tries, so I'll just stick to online play for now.

[avdg]

html manifest should make it possible to have apps working offline.

[avdg]

I'm not a jekyll user, but I also don't want to end up increasing work load. I think the manifest should be generated automagically by listing all public files in it (the build just looks up for static pulbic files).

[avdg]

Documentation: https://developers.whatwg.org/offline.html#offline

[avdg]

I got a working example for offline play: https://avdg.github.io/atc/

I will send a pr