pylcg (LCG V1 replacement run locally)

First thank you for taking that path!
I have a comment and a suggestion about possible functionality.

Comment about highlighting an observer - I personally use that quite often when planning my data usage or observation strategy or just when trying to get overview of existing observations. How I do that? I plot e.g. visual and V data. That last one often contains non-transformed observations mixed with transformed ones. Also, often there are observers who have contributed long(er) time-series collected using exactly the same setup and data processing approach (selection of comparison stars mostly, I guess). So I highlight observations of those observers, typically one by one, who have contributed with many datapoints - to see how nightly observations scatter and/or how longer time period looks like. After such visual inspection I usually select observer(s) whose data I will take as the reference. But also I use highlighting to display my own observations against others.

Problem with especially LCGv2 is that the symbol is very large (actually just different colour of symbols would do well, when it would be shown on/as foreground layer!) and that doesn't make visual inspection easier. Still, that's better than no such functionality :-)

My small request for functionality is about finding stars. I would suggest or ask what you think about making possible to use any Simbad resolvable name? For that, e.g. Astroquery (it's part of Astropy module, https://astroquery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) could be really usable. I'm not sure if it can be used directly for AAVSO VSX or photometry databases, but definitely it is very useful to get coordinates based on almost any name a star might have.

Best wishes,
Tõnis

Hello Tõnis

Thanks for the notes.

Yes, highlighting observers will probably happen sooner rather than later. We will start with highlighting only one observer.

I also like the idea of resolving Simbad names, but I will have to learn how this would work. I also hesitate to import astropy entirely (it's big) for only one function, but perhaps I can persuade pyinstaller to import only the part needed.

Cheers

Thanks a lot Eric,

for the continuing development of the program. Together with my son I will have a look and give feedback.

Regards,

Josch

Hi Eric,

Great work! I have a few minor suggestions.

1. When selecting the date range, it would be nice to be able to enter calendar dates so that the user doesn't have to convert from calendar date into JD.
2. I recommend that you consider listing a truncated JD along the x-axis (i.e., subtract an integer constant from all JDs). I think that this would make the x-axis labels more readable, particular when the user zooms in. The x-axis label could be updated to indicate the offset (e.g., JD - 2458119).
3. When you hover the cursor over the plot, matplotlib displays the current x and y values of the cursor in the bottom of the window, but it is possible to customize this information by specifying a custom coordinate format. As an example, the default output might report the cursor position as x=2.45811e+06, y=10.000, but with a small amount of customization, this could be changed to something like: Closest observation to cursor: JD = 2458119.5001, V = 10.010 +/- 0.010, Obs = DERA, Date = 2018-01-01.

These are very minor points, though, and it's possible that other users might not care about them. Your code combines the speed of LCGv1 with the interactivity of LCGv2, and I find the user interface intuitive.

Best,

Colin

(Original post edited for clarity)

Dear Eric,

I used the EXE version a bit today as I am travelling until Sunday night. On my laptop I cannot see the whole screen and a slider bar in case of need would be advisable.

The speed is great, it plotted all 18ey data in about  1 minute. I also would like to be able to enter calendar dates and also either plot calendar dates as x-axis or JD like in LCG1.

The feature to zoom is very handy. It would be great if all data are loaded and one could chose a single (or even multiple) observer, not only highlighting them but maybe select them and only show the data of the selected user(s). Sometimes the data are scattered a lot due to problems some observers have in getting decent photometric data. It would be great to exclude them.

Furthermore I would need to test it more in detail but presently my time is limited to do so.

Anyway it is a real improvement in view of LCG2 and it would be good to be taken over by AAVSO.

My son told me that the speed for the present amount of data is dependent on the AAVSO API to download the data and not by your code. Only if the amount of data goes into millions then one could use other means to speed things up.

So a great tool and I am convinced it will be useful for many observers.

Regards,

Josch

I'm pleased to make available a new, improved pylcg--version 0.2 beta--is now available for download. It has lots of goodies for high-volume users, including:

• import of star IDs from upload files,
• Next and Previous plot buttons,
• entry of Start and End dates in calendar format (US or International) as well as Julian Dates,
• check marks next to dates entered to ensure correct entry,
• On/Off toggling of Less-than observations, and
• cache clearing in case something goes woefully wrong (I haven't seen that yet).

Sorry, but plotting Calendar Dates on the x-axis will have to wait until the next (November) version. For days I chased a bug in Tkinter's zoom toolbar in which switching x-units makes it lose track of all x-axis info. It's hopeless, and I must code my own zooming and x-axis management, both. Sigh.

Download pylcg as a zip file, from www.awfulgood.com/pylcg/pylcg_app.zip (using a FTP program like Filezilla, or even just a recent browser--I've verified downloads in Firefox and Chrome). I would always run an antivirus scan on any download. Then you just unzip the main folder anywhere and run app.exe. and then the first time you actually run app.exe, (1) your anti-virus may complain about signatures, and (2) your firewall may ask for permission to access the internet. That's pretty normal. If you've run a scan, then just click OK and enjoy.

The README file at www.github.com/edose/pylcg will probably be helpful. This README is as concise an intro as I could write; it will save you time. The issues page (both pending and closed) is at https://github.com/edose/pylcg/issues . The repo and source code are public.

Comments, bug reports, and suggestions for enhancement are solicited! You may private message me via AAVSO, or just post to this thread.

Pylcg 0.3 beta, with x-axis Calendar Dates and a few other enhancements, is scheduled for early November, hopefully before the AAVSO meeting in Flagstaff--see you there!

Thanks,

Eric Dose, AAVSO observer DERA

Rearranging all the controls will not simplify development...for all its execution speed and reliability, Tkinter does not make major refactoring easy. But if the number of controls (buttons, entry boxes, checkboxes) continues to grow, yes, some of the lesser-used controls may have to move to a separate window and/or into the menu bar.

Rearranging all the controls would suspend other development and testing for a month or two. And frankly it's tedious beyond belief whereas right now we have some momentum. I'll open a github issue to track the idea, but this is for later.

Hi Eric,

I have to agree with your comments on separate controls window in Tkinter.

I also wanted to share a nice finding. Because of other projects at work, I was looking for fast updating graphing (real-time data from network analyzers and vibration/shock testing setups) possibility in Python and found http://www.pyqtgraph.org/ Seems that pyqtgraph doesn't need any particular specific add-ons from Python, except PyQt that is very often already installed (when installing e.g. matplotlib). Also, PyQt allows to create almost any kind of GUI.

On pyqtgraph page, they point to one other project that illustrates very well what I was thinking about when asking about controls window - e.g this particular screenshot: http://acq4.org/screenshots/photostim.png (there is more eye-candy screenshots).

Probably it did not help much but hopefully was interesting :-)
Best wishes,
Tõnis

When trying to keep installation minimum under Windows, I installed python3 with miniconda and then added from Anaconda prompt:  conda install numpy matplotlib
Probably that installed also everything that is needed for pylcg

For minimum footprint, I downloaded latest git release as .zip-file and extracted to a directory c:\users\tonis\pylcg-master. To get it running I had to add it's directory to PYTHONPATH:

(base) C:\Users\tonis\pylcg-master>set PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%;C:\Users\tonis\pylcg-master

and after that in the directory C:\Users\tonis\pylcg-master\pylcg : python -m app

Probably it works similarly under e.g. Linux when one is not using any development environments etc. Eric, what do you think, would similar example be worth to mention in Readme?

Best wishes,
Tõnis

Tõnis: It's not quite clear to me just what you're asking for. It's wonderful if you've been able to run pylcg's python code in Linux, but I will confess here that I am wholly unqualified to advise others (in a readme file, for example) on how to run python code in a wide gamut of environments, and especially not in Linux. I would be happy to consider adding to the repo a text file with your Linux installation advice, if you'd care to write it up.

As all the initial user requests were for a Windows executable, that is what I have provided. So far Windows executables seem to provide uniform installation and high performance. If someone wants to provide pylcg (in a more mature version) as a web service, that would be great but again I'm not qualified to do so.

Pylcg development is strictly subordinate to my busy observing program; I am keeping strict limits on the pylcg effort. My own plan continues to be: (1) pushing python code intermediate revisions (every few days) to Github, and (2) providing links here to Window executables for more major releases (~monthly) until the current issues are addressed. Then about January, my development will probably stop. If someone is moved to fork the repo to continue development of pylcg and its readme from there, they are always welcome to do so.

Eric,

Very nicely done!  I was looking at the code - I know, I know.  Sorry.

The funky web response parsing with various separators surprised me.  Is this all driven by the free-form comments?  No way to get the web service to escape the separator?

thanks,

Cliff

The third and last beta (advanced test) version of pylcg is now available. Zoom, pan, observer highlighting, one-observer plots, cursor position in date and magnitude, calendar dates on horizontal axis, and observer list popup table are now added.

Download the Windows executable from http://awfulgood.com/pylcg/pylcg_0.3_beta.zip .

Source Code (python 3) and Readme file at https://github.com/edose/pylcg . You want to read the readme file first (whence its name).

Screenshot at https://github.com/edose/pylcg/blob/master/screenshot_pylcg_03beta.png . (It might be clearer in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/edose/pylcg/master/screenshot_pylcg_0… .)

Release 1.0 with fewer rough edges is expected mid-January 2018.

Enjoy!!

Hi Eric,

great improvements, however on my laptop I cannot see the full screen. I cannot see and check the error bar and less than boxes nor can I see the observers. You loose a lot of space by having blank areas between the boxes to the right where one can enter information (star, plot range, checkboxes etc.). Unfortunately if the screen does not fit into the resolution of the e.g. laptop screen then there is no slider to be able to access also the options hidden below the Quit pylcg field.

I can show you the issue during the AAVSO meeting the next days.

Josch

That is of course a drawback and maybe you could add this to your to-do list.

After testing pylcg on some laptops etc and reconsidering, yes in a week or two I probably do need to release a 0.31 beta to shrink minimum vertical size a bit, down to 800 if I can fit everything.

Josch, it would be very helpful for me to see pylcg on own your laptop. I think that's you across the conference room, so perhaps we can find each other today and do that.

Of course as soon as I write that 0.3 is the last pylcg beta, we discover that Windows 10 on laptops tends to expand the native size of certain GUI apps so that they no longer fit on the screen. Pylcg got caught in this. Gee, thanks, Microsoft. Josch and George both showed it to me in Flagstaff, so I had to do something. That something is...0.31 beta, now available as Windows executable at from http://awfulgood.com/pylcg/pylcg_0.31_beta.zip . No other changes from 0.3 beta. Remember that you can resize the plot window from the initial size at launch. If 0.3 works for you, no need to go to 0.31. They will converge at release 1.0 mid-January.

Source Code (python 3) and Readme file (please read it before installing) continue to be available at https://github.com/edose/pylcg .

Let me know how it fits now. If it requires a 0.32 and/or 0.33 to get the sizing right, I'll do it.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving in arrears to my Canadian friends, and Joyeux Jeudi-comme-les-autres etc to my Euroamis.

Hi Eric,

thank you for the quick fix. It was a pleasure meeting you in Flagstaff and talking to you. I downloaded the new version to my desktop just to see what all I missed on my laptop :-)

I need to do this on my laptop as wel to test your fix, however I see a possible imnprovement for V1.0.

In the list of observers it would be great to also add the filters they observe in like it is done on the new LCGV2 where I find this a good addon.

Josch

Also downloaded on my laptop and I see no difference to the pevious version.

Actually you did not change the version number nor the date, did you? Would be better to see whether the nbew version is loaded. On my desktop of course I have larger resolution screens and see the full window. On the laptop not.

Josch

My fault. I somehow corrupted the link so that it showed 0.31 but directed you to 0.3.

It works now. I have corrected the link in my previous post, and I'll repeat it here to be sure: http://awfulgood.com/pylcg/pylcg_0.31_beta.zip . Sorry for mistakenly pointing you to the old version.

I will add to the Issues a summary of filters per observer in the List Observers table. thanks.

Eric,

sorry to say but it still does not show the full screen.

If I open it and make it full screen on the laptop I see until the less than and error bars checkbox.

If I have it smaller than the full screen I can boxes preferences and VSX but the icons in function of the plot area (zoom etc) are gone.

Only on my desktop I see all (still with V0.30). I would need to download the new 0.31 also for the desktop.

Josch

Eric, thanks for the recommendations. Will try on Monday as during the weekend I am too busy and out of the house.

Josch

Eric,

I got it to work by checking both boxes in the high DPI settings and putting the drop down menues to application and when I open the program.

Josch

Hello, all,

The new and first main release 1.00 of pylcg is available for download at:

      http://www.awfulgood.com/pylcg/pylcg_1_00.zip.

To install, download the zip file and unzip it anywhere. Has been tested on Windows 7 and 10.

I would recommend you first read the updated README file at:

     https://github.com/edose/pylcg/blob/master/README.md

For the intrepid, the source code is available at https://github.com/edose/pylcg as well.

This will be the last release for several months. Minor bug-fix releases are of course possible.)

Enjoy,

Eric

Hi Eric,

sorry for the long delay to the V1 testing on my laptop. I still cannot see all of the window even if I use the SMALLER option in the preferences. That seems not to work whatever I try in resizing the window.

On te desktop all works fine due to the larger screens.

Josch