Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

I have tried an harmattan build.

good news: it works, sort of.
bad news: the interface is completely unthemed, and window management does not really work. I will really need to wrap everything in QML.

Oh, well.

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

I finally fixed the build issue, and now Quando Parte is in the queue for extras-devel!

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

Hi,
I just noticed that you entered the station "Messina Marittima" and misses the main station, "Messina Centrale" ... from "Messina Marittima" pass ONLY trains to be loaded into a ferry to cross the Strait of Messina, the rest of the train stops at "Messina Centrale."
Can you add the station in the next update?

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

Yes, I will try. I am updating the data set from openstreetmap, but lately i get lots of connection timeouts. So next dataset update may take longer to get ready.

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

A very minor update is now ready mainly to fix the localization issues.
While I was at it, I updated the icon, and added a few more stations to the station list (including Messina Centrale! :-) ).

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

Why in the fscking world doesn't anyone write an application like this for worldwide usage? Use this for Italy, that for Montreal (with a completely different UI), and God forbid you find yourself in Ukraine, because then you are seriously screwed.

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

For sure, it would be nice to be able to find out this kind of data all ovre the world.

The problem is that each operator (if it provides the service to the public) has its own web site, with a different interface and probably different kind of data. So, while doing the work for a single operator can reasonably be done as a few evening project, doing the same globally is a much harder work.

I do not exclude the possibility of extending the program to other operators/networks, if I find out the data to be available, but it is too early for me to tell...

It could be useful to collect railways online services pointers somewhere. If you know online services, let me knowof them.

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

In Python, for example, we have that thing called polymorphism. There could be hundreds of scrapers feeding data in some common format.

And then, apart from trains, there are many other different kinds of public transit going more or less on schedule and with more or less fixed routes.

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

The main problem as I see it, is finding out the data sources. Do you have any pointer handy, so that I may have a larger sample of data formats?

But, thinking about Quando Parte, also the data model would have to be changed: currently I keep the station list on the device all the time... But if I had to have many more stations that would not work, and I would have to download station location data from some kind of service.

I am not saying it is impossible to have such an application, but to have any chance to do that in any realistic time frame, there would need to be a community of people dedicated to complete the task, clean up data, report problems, etc.

Re: [Announce] Quando Parte, an Italian train station monitor
 

The problem with the application being online is that in a foreign city of a foreign country, where a public transit app is most important, you are roaming which costs like hell. So a primarily offline application is, kinda, must.

Second, what if you just document carefully the data format used and enable the application (if not already) to work with multiple databases? I think those who find a way to scrape the data from services will let you know they can, once you advertise it.